It’s been nearly six years since Avenged Sevenfold released their last album, but the gap will soon be closed as the band is putting the finishing touches on their new one this month. Additionally, frontman M. Shadows has stated that the new material is “very influenced” by rapper Kanye West.
Shadows told Metal Hammer that the string sections are being finished sometime in January, which is a task that was delayed due to the pandemic, since the band couldn’t fly to Prague.
“When an orchestra have to social distance and they aren’t sitting next to each other, they can get out of tune, and we have just finally got to a place where we can use this 70-piece orchestra as we intended. We finish the record in February, mix it in March,” he added.
The singer noted that there is a wide array of influences will be heard on the new album, but one of the big ones was West.
“The thing about Kanye is that he is pulling from such great soul music. I didn’t grow up with that stuff — my dad listened to Boston and Alice Cooper, I didn’t get that taste of Black music and old soul. So, diving deep into jazz musicians… we’re not trying to do a jazz record, but the chord changes and progressions are so eye-opening to us.”
This past July, the vocalist confirmed that the new set of songs will be out by the summer of 2022, so hopefully that timeline is still in tact. Previously, the band had been holding off on releasing any material without the ability to tour in support of it. The upcoming eighth studio record will serve as the follow-up to 2016’s The Stage, which Shadows claimed is still his favorite album of theirs.
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