M. Shadows: Avenged Sevenfold’s new album is “always making left-turns on you”

Following the announcement of their upcoming eighth album Life Is But A Dream and the release of lead single Nobody earlier this month, Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows has spoken about how “different” the band’s new record is.

Following the epic The Stage in 2016, the vocalist tells Finn McKenty aka The Punk Rock MBA in a new interview that Life Is But A Dream has a totally “different mind-set”, and is “completely reworked from what we think of as records and how they should be made”.

“I’ve said it to a few people: the thing I keep getting back is Abbey Road-esque,” M. Shadows explains (transcribed by Kerrang!). “It’s just different; it’s got a bunch of flavours and colours, we don’t stay too long anywhere, it’s kind of in and out. It’s a different mind-set, completely reworked from what we think of as records and how they should be made. And what I mean by that is The Stage is a sprawling sort of vibe the whole time – it’s got a thing going on. But this one we were like, ‘We want to express ideas quickly, and more concise. And we want to use different ways that we’re using our instruments.’ A lot of people think the record’s full of samples – or even Nobody. But there aren’t any. That’s all stuff that we actually went in there and crafted ourselves.”

“I think this record is Beatles-esque in the way that it’s trying to do a bunch of different things, and have a bunch of different flavours. That’s what I’ll say.”

Finn then teases how the album has everything from “thrash metal” to “funky R&B”, to which M. Shadows responds: “It’s Life Is But A Dream, man! It’s a trip. Without going too deep, because I know people will take this and really worry themselves (laughs), I just want people to sit down and listen to it, and I want them to be shocked, take it in, be happy, smile, feel uncomfortable… there’s all sorts of flavours on it, right? And I think it’ll be interesting when it comes out. I’m super-proud of it, I love it, but The Stage was one sort of vibe, and the vibe on this one is that you can’t really get locked in anywhere. It’s always making left-turns on you.”

Watch the full interview below:

And check out the video for Nobody below:

Life Is But A Dream is due out on June 2 via Warner Records. The band are headlining Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on June 9, and New York’s Madison Square Garden on June 23.

Read this: Out Of The Shadows: The story of Avenged Sevenfold’s Nightmare