After The Stage and Hail to the King, it might seem strange to some, but once upon a time, Avenged Sevenfold was a really great band. Their music was a hybrid of Queen, Guns N Roses, Metallica, and some stuff I can’t even describe. Wild vocals, insane guitar duels, and strange tones made Avenged Sevenfold one of the best hard rock/heavy metal bands of the early 2000’s. Here are the top ten Avenged Sevenfold songs of all time.
The Top 10 Avenged Sevenfold Songs
Honorable Mentions.
There are a few Avenged jams that I personally love that I just couldn’t fit on this list, but that you should absolutely check out.
So Far Away– Great emotional ballad, just not their best emotional ballad.
Sidewinder– This song is brilliant, it’s called sidewinder and the solo sounds like a snake.
M.I.A.– Catchy little song about war that I’d love a lot more if he didn’t whine at the end.
Gunslinger– Super emotional song about being far from home, just missed the cut.
10. Chapter Four
Kicking off our list is a song that has become a bit of a deep cut for Avenged. Chapter Four, off of their second album, Waking The Fallen, is a reference to chapter four in the book of Genesis, regarding Cain and Abel, and that’s what the song is about! While Avenged Sevenfold were never really a christian band, there were religious themes in their early albums. The name itself is from the bible, after all.
This song was one of the very first to demonstrate what would become Avenged’s signature style. It’s a sweeping, melodic, hardcore tune that manages to be catchy and metalcore at the same time with a sing-along chorus that gets stuck in your head.
9. Almost Easy
With a spooky music video that was based on a Wendy’s commercial, Almost Easy helped prove that City of Evil wasn’t a fluke album and that Avenged was here to stay. Like I stated above, the best Avenged songs had a ton of things in common. The chorus is ridiculously catchy, the guitar solo is almost excessively complicated, but it keeps itself grounded in it’s metal roots.
8. Second Heartbeat
This is the most underrated song in Avenged Sevenfold’s discography. This jam is a non-stop roller coaster ride that rages on for seven minutes and is topped off with one of the nastiest guitar solos I’ve ever heard. Perhaps one of the last songs where vocalist M. Shadows actually screams, I’ve never not moshed to this song when they’ve played it at concerts. Some people probably wouldn’t include this song on their list, but a late friend introduced me to the band with this song, and they’ve been my favorite ever since.
7. Buried Alive
I think that one of the reasons I love this song so much is that it’s so versatile. It starts off so slow that you feel like it’s going to be another Avenged Sevenfold ballad, but about two minutes in, it picks up speed. It slows back down again, but then it slowly builds until it’s an all-out thrasher two minutes later. The song has so many ups and downs, but it feels so organic that you hardly even notice nearly seven minutes have gone by.
6. Seize The Day
Seize The Day is such a weird twist for Avenged Sevenfold. While every other song on City of Evil is a thrasher, Seize The Day is a meaningful ballad with a killer solo. Admittedly, this song definitely borrows a lot from Guns N Roses’ November Rain, but I almost have to say this song is better. The solo in November Rain feels entirely out of place at the end compared to this jam, where it just slides in nicely about three minutes in.
5. Unholy Confessions
Right, do you wanna get your teeth kicked in? I mean, do you wanna get your ass kicked? Do you want a jam that makes you want to kick some ass, well buckle up, Rowdy Roddy Piper, because I just found the jam for you. Unholy Confessions is to Avenged Sevenfold what For Whom The Bell Tolls was for Metallica. The riff is simple but catchy, and I’ve seen Metallica, Slayer, Disturbed, Anthrax, several garbage Warped Tour bands, and a dozen other heavy metal bands live, no pit matches an Avenged pit when this jam plays.
4. A Little Piece of Heaven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VurhzANQ_B0
This song is so screwed up. I mean, I don’t even know if I should tell you what this song is about. It’s super disturbing. Like, not suitable for theatres with an NC-17 disturbing. But at the end of the day, the song itself is absolutely brilliant. It sounds like it belongs on Broadway… just maybe not in a play Broadway would approve of. Viewer and listener discretion is highly advised.
3. Nightmare
Fresh off the unfortunate passing of their drummer, Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan, the future of Avenged Sevenfold was in doubt. Would the band keep on keeping on? Would they have the same sound? Could they ever pick up where they left off with the passing of a dear friend? The answer was a resounding yes. Nightmare, the song and the album, managed to keep that same Avenged Sevenfold sound, while emotionally pouring their hearts out into it. You felt their pain in each and every song, and no song plucked the heartstrings quite like this one.
2. Afterlife
When I first heard Afterlife on the radio back in 2007, I was completely thrown off. The radio and album version start with string instruments, and I wondered what in the world was playing on my rock station. Then the guitars kicked off and I felt the revelation creeping up my spine until the song rocked into full force and I realized Avenged Sevenfold was back!
And with them was their wonderful style. The insane shredding, Shadows’ nasally growl, and a chorus that would be stuck in my head all day. This is arguably Avenged Sevenfold’s second biggest song. However, when it came to their biggest hit, the answer is obvious.
1. Bat Country
If we’re being honest with ourselves, we all knew that Bat Country was gonna be the number one jam. This song, off of City of Evil, launched Avenged Sevenfold into the mainstream, even being featured in video games (Like Madden 06) and movies. Loosely based on Hunter S. Thompson’s classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, even the music video is all sorts of wacky.
Hopefully a time will come when Avenged Sevenfold returns to the revolutionary rockers that they were, abandoning lazy philosophical questions about robots or even lazier metaphors about the devil. Having said that, how do you feel about my list? Wanna tell me how great God Damn was and why Second Heartbeat was too high? Tweet at me at RyanSmithLWOS, and I’ll tell you all about each of the seven times I’ve seen this band play live.