Avenged Sevenfold - Sounding the Seventh Trumpet

A confusing piece of album for sure. Avenged Sevenfold has claimed a complete mess of punk, black metal, and 80's flare. You've got the first track, "To End The Rapture", reaking of glam and 80's guitar sweeps that will, in fact, automate the eject button tractor beam. Depending on your attention span, if you make it track 3, "Darkness Surrounding", you may be pleasantly surprised. We digress to a speedy punk experiment with three part harmony calling out in tribute to Bad Religion and Propaghandi. From that point on, we're fairly steady with fake phlegm growls, riff after riff, and damn impressive hyperdrumming. It's just plain confusing. Many go for the multi-genre collages, but it doesn't get much more messed up then Avenged Sevenfold. If some tracks were completely left out, you'd have a fairly solid metal demo, but it just keeps jumping. Boing, Boing, right into "Warmness On The Soul", one of the absolute worst power ballads I've ever heard in my entire life. A piano and reverb saturated poopile in the middle of an otherwise decent stream of songs. Redeeming tracks include "We Come Out At Night" and "Thick and Thin", both solid and righteous metal tunes with impressive growl to harmony transitions, and wildly creative riffs, but at least half the album leaves too much to be desired. "Sounding the Seventh Trumpet" is a jagged album - half brilliant and half wretched. Half is a 2.5. There are some great songs on here, but in between those high points is nothing worth buying. With the skip button close, it's a great EP, and worth a burn, but that is all. [www.avengedsevenfold.com]