Avenged Sevenfold Announce New EP, Black Reign

After releasing a brand-new Call Of Duty single in the form of Mad Hatter, Avenged Sevenfold have now unveiled details of the EP in which it'll belong on: Black Reign.

As frontman M. Shadows explained in the latest issue of Kerrang! (which is on sale for one more day), the metal titans are releasing all of their Call Of Duty: Black Ops collaborations in one place – and they'll be out as one cohesive whole this Friday, September 21, via Warner Bros. Records.

“We have a very deep relationship with the team at Treyarch,” M. Shadows says. “We’re proud to be part of the family and extremely excited for people to enjoy this next chapter and our contribution to it.”

“As fans of the game and as world class musicians, Avenged Sevenfold has demonstrated an innate ability to convey the emotion and raw power of the Call of Duty Zombies experience,” adds Jason Blundell, Director of Zombies at Treyarch. “We’re introducing fans to a new cast of characters in Black Ops 4 and delivering the biggest Zombies experience to date. With IX we knew we needed something epic and A7X delivered.”

Meanwhile, of Mad Hatter itself, Shadows reveals: “Watching the initial trailers and looking at production sketches reminded me of the S-Town podcast and its main protagonist, John B. McLemore, who was rumored to have suffered from mercury poisoning, or Mad Hatter disease. The idea of Mad Hatter and what it does to the brain is as frightening as the images we were shown. So I decided that the lyrics would shadow McLemore’s life. The result is a thick-grooved song that’s dynamic and has a weightiness to it.

“Black Ops 4 looks insane and is something completely new for fans, so we felt that we should take a similar leap with the music and go for something bigger, darker and more cerebral,” he says.

M. Shadows live photo: Chris Casey