City of Evil

City of Evil
Studio album by Avenged Sevenfold
Released	June 6, 2005 (2005-06-06)
Recorded	April 2005
Genre	Heavy metal, hard rock
Length	72:43
Label	Warner Bros.
Producer	Avenged Sevenfold Andrew Murdock
Avenged Sevenfold chronology
Waking the Fallen (2003) City of Evil (2005) Avenged Sevenfold (2007)
Singles from City of Evil
"Burn It Down" Released: June 12, 2005 "Bat Country" Released: September 26, 2005 "Beast and the Harlot" Released: March 6, 2006 "Seize the Day" Released: July 7, 2006

City of Evil is the third studio album by Avenged Sevenfold released on June 6, 2005^[1] by Warner Bros. Records. Co-produced by Andrew Murdock, City of Evil contains a more hard rock and classic heavy metal sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous two albums, which showcased a predominantly metalcore sound. The album is also notable for the absence of screaming vocals. M. Shadows worked for months before the album's release with vocal coach Ron Anderson, whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell, to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone". In order to increase stamina and strength on the pedals, The Rev would sit for hours practicing until he could get up to 210 beats per minute. The album was ranked No. 63 on Guitar World magazine's "100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time". City of Evil also appears in Kerrang's "666 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".

The album contains some of Avenged Sevenfold's most popular and famous songs, including "Bat Country", "Beast and the Harlot", "Burn it Down", and "Seize the Day", all four of which were released as singles between June 2005 and July 2006. City of Evil was very successful after its release, debuting at #30 on the Billboard 200 chart and certified as a platinum record by the Recording Industry Association of America in August 2009. It went on to sell over 1,500,000 copies in the United States, and 2,500,000 total worldwide, making it the best-selling album out of Avenged Sevenfold's discography as of 2010. Also, it is the band's longest studio effort, at 72:52 minutes.

"Betrayed" and "Bat Country" were written in memory of Pantera lead guitarist Dimebag Darrell and Hunter S. Thompson, respectively.^[2]

"Bat Country", "Beast and the Harlot" and "Seize the Day", were also released as music videos, directed by Marc Klasfeld, Tony Petrossian, and Wayne Isham, respectively. The Rev performs backing vocals on the tracks "Bat Country", "Strength of the World", and "M.I.A."

The album title is derived from a lyric in the song, "Beast and the Harlot".

The song "Beast and the Harlot" is featured on Criterion Games's Burnout Revenge (2005)

The song "Blinded In Chains" is featured on EA's Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005) as a clean and shortened version. Original length of 6:34 down to 5:55 for the game version.^[3]

The song "Bat Country" is featured on Volition Inc.'s Saints Row 2 (2008).

History

Previously, Avenged Sevenfold had written and released two albums, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet in 2001 and Waking the Fallen in 2003, under the Hopeless Records label.^[4] Although neither album was a smash hit, the latter has been certified gold by the RIAA. Waking the Fallen attracted several major record labels to the band, and eventually they signed with Warner Bros. Records after consideration of several others.^[5]

Musical changes

When they began to write the album, Avenged Sevenfold turned to their influences for a change in style. Realizing that none of their favorite bands were as heavy or extreme as them, they decided to change from metalcore to a more classic hard rock/heavy metal sound with few metalcore influences. "When we started working on this record, we said, 'You know what? None of our favorite bands are super extreme, they just write really good melodic songs that are still heavy," said singer M. Shadows in an interview.^[4]

M. Shadows' vocal changes

Shadows turned to Ron Anderson, a vocal coach that had previously worked with Axl Rose and Chris Cornell.^[6] Shadows was specifically looking to add a more gritty, raspy tone to his voice and worked with Anderson for several months on this before City of Evil was recorded.^[6]

"Ron taught me how to have that grit to my voice while still having the tone. He brought all of that to the table and he brought that technique to my voice. I’ve worked with him for about a year and a half now, but I worked with him for nine months before the record," said Shadows, "I told him that I want my voice to sound different from everybody else, but I wanted those characteristics in my voice...It was one of those things that we just wanted to go all the way with it."^[6]

After the release of the album rumors spread that Shadows had lost his ability to scream due to throat surgery he had needed after Warped Tour 2003.^[7] Producer Andrew Murdock put down these rumors by saying "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet...Matt handed me the CD, and he said to me, 'This record's screaming. The record we want to make...is going to be half-screaming and half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore...the record after that is going to be all singing.'"^[8]

Videography

City of Evil features most of the songs that Avenged Sevenfold has made videos for. On May 4, 2005, they released a promotional video for "Burn It Down", which was done in the same way as "Unholy Confessions" from Waking the Fallen (live footage with dubbed music). On July 28, 2005, their first professional video for a song on the album, "Bat Country", was released. It was directed by Marc Klasfeld. On February 6, 2006, "Beast and the Harlot" was released. This was a few weeks after it had been leaked on YouTube. It was directed by Tony Petrossian. Most recently, on June 30, 2006, the video for "Seize the Day" was released on Avenged Sevenfold's MySpace. The video was directed by Wayne Isham.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[9]
Blender	[10]
IGN	7.9/10[11]
Kerrang!	[citation needed]
Metal Hammer	8/10 Issue 141, July 2005
Punknews.org	[12]
Rolling Stone	[13]
Sputnikmusic	4.5/5[14]

The album debuted at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 selling over 30,000 copies.^[15][16] Rolling Stone praised the guitar work, giving the album three out of a possible five stars.^[13] Johnny Loftus of Allmusic rated the album three-and-a-half stars out of five and commented "...Avenged Sevenfold gets all the pieces right, and sound like they're having more fun here than in the scattershot approach of the first couple records".^[9] British magazine Metal Hammer gave the album an eight out of ten rating with Katie Parsons concluding "They have done it their way, they're having fun and who the hell can blame them?".

In addition, "Bat Country" was one of the breakout singles of 2005, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks, No. 6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks, and No. 1 on MTV's Total Request Live.^[17] Additionally, the band won Best New Artist at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, beating out Rihanna, Panic! at the Disco, James Blunt, Angels & Airwaves and Chris Brown.^[18][19] In Ultimate Guitar's Top 100 Songs of All Time by rating, "Beast and the Harlot" is ranked as #60, while "Bat Country is ranked as #94.^[20]

Track listing

All songs credited to Avenged Sevenfold.^[2] Actual songwriters are listed below.^{[citation needed]}

Personnel

Personnel listing as adapted from album liner notes:^[2]

References

• Avenged Sevenfold (July 17, 2007). All Excess (DVD). Warner Bros., Adam Cook & Core Entertainment, Inc. 

Citations