I promised a post on kind of breaking down how I understand the album but I thought a combination of it could make me pretentiously douchie and who really cares? Well I do.
I figured I'd try to post this as I listen to the album, giving notes on each track. One thing kind of goes without saying that this is The Rev's last studio work before his death and much of that echoes through each track to me. It's going to be very weird hearing an A7V track without him physically on the drums. Not that I hated any of the other albums mind you, but this is perhaps his best work too which makes it even more tragic to me. I literally can't listen to it without going "Aww damnit!" every time I remember.
I won't try to dissect what I think each track means I don't think. That seems a little pretentious because people often have their own interpretation anyway. Now that I've bored you and the title track Nightmare is over I can go over it:
1 Nightmare - The opening track starts out really mellow which A7V can do quite well but when hell hits around the 0:30 second mark it instantly becomes a typical track. Dueling squeals of guitars and drums of steel quickly start the crescendo to the first verse. The solo sections aren't too over done and when the drums come back, I can't help but start head banging. This is a strong opening for me, really.
2 Welcome to the Family - I have to admit now that I've stopped playing the entire album full stop, I tend to skip this one. This is a track I'd love to play on Rock Band just for the random complexity in spots. As I listen to it I can't really put why I don't like it to words but I think I just pine for the other tracks.
3 Danger Line - I confess I did skip the last track. Danger Line starts with a sweet snare bit that just keeps me interested immediately. I said I wouldn't describe the meaning of tracks but this one seems pretty straightforward and I'll admit it's part of what hooks me. It doesn't hurt that during the verse there's a badass low riff leading to more dueling fills. What really gets me, and sets off that response someone had a name for is right around 3:15 when the piano starts (Hi, Rev! :(). Once the last words are spoken and the guitars come back, I not only identify with the person the track describes but The Rev as well. It's partly eerie how well it works and how deep it can go without personally knowing these people.
4 Buried Alive - Starting off with a lovely ditty to immediately follow the last track, I get sucked in like a black hole. I might not some of these tracks on their own but the order was pure mastery except for one caveat *. There's not much I can say other than it's just all good and especially around the 5:00 mark when the beat changes. Much head banging ensues.
5 Natural Born Killer - Starts off strong with a nice fast tempo. I tend to not like this track like #2 for unknown reasons. I suppose the correct phrasing would be "like less" because I could listen to all of the tracks quite easily but others have a lot of gravity if the metaphor holds.
6 So Far Away - I suppose the only thing I can really say is the words are eerie in the context of everything but right about 3:40 when the slowness starts it ramps up in awesome for me. Belting out "Soooo far awaaaaay" really makes the words hit even harder.
7 God Hates Us - As a Christian I can't say I enjoy the lyrics at all, which tends to lead me to skip it. Yeah I know, such a Bible thumping behavior but I suppose part if it reminds me of the times I did "hate God" which only reminds me of how drastically my view to cause such hatred was altered. I don't believe God hates anything but that's neither here nor there.
8 Victim - It's hard to describe any special parts of the track though I listen to it consistently with everything else. It's a solid yet basic A7V track to me.
9 Tonight The World Dies - I actually have to skip this track consistently. When he sings a long "Iiiiiiiiiiii" somehow that note just pierces my brain and I want it out of my head immediately. I'm listening to it to the point where that starts, which is right around 1:40. Ugh skip time.
10 Fiction - By far far far far my favorite track. I suppose it's The Rev's badass piano work in addition to the drum beat. The entire thing is just ear sex to me. Ending on the organ as they do just seals the entire package for me. I can't really explain it other than "mmmmmmm mmmmmmmm!"
11 Save Me - Welcome to my second favorite track and only because of the awesome intro. This is the way to end a metal album to me and again goes back to placement. I'd really love to play this on Rock Band. Being a 10 minute song though would be Freebird quality almost but I suppose I can't get over how awesome the song is in spite of this. To that end it almost gets too excessive but it never steps over that boundary. "Tonight we all die young" does explain things quite well and since that's my last lyric paste I can promise I won't make any more.
*- The caveat is the last two tracks are so badass I'd rather listen to them earlier but it does end with a huge bang.
So there you have it. I personally think it's a badass album and I'd almost listen to tracks 10 and 11 first but any new album always gets a straight 1-n pass as many times as I can stand it so I can determine which tracks I skip. This album has almost 0 especially if I just wanted to be lazy. This is Avenged Sevenfold to me and every album has grown to be better than the last for me. It's quite sad that I'll miss The Rev though, especially having never seeing them live yet.
I promise I haven't been intentionally neglecting you, Mr. Blog.
A lot has changed since the last time I posted here. I basically got laid off from a position in IT working for my dad's company at Omega HR Solutions, Inc. I transitioned into a career path I chosen in college: software development. It was rather fortunate that I had been doing a lot of work in .NET throughout the 10+ years of working for them to produce relatively usable code.
My current position is with Swerdlin & Company officially as "Software Developer" until a cooler title can be coined. Normally, I usually keep a low profile regarding my employment primarily due to negativity I tend to generate regarding some of the work I've done in the past. I think that behavior is going to change dramatically. Why? Well even the worst most annoying task I can be assigned is an exciting challenge and it isn't every day I can say that.
Even though my dataset is limited, Swerdlin is the greatest company I've ever worked for. We have an annual Dog Day in June, "Giant cupcake day" (STARS) roughly every 1-2 months, and I'm given a great deal of professional and creative freedom. I'm typing this on my laptop that I'm allowed to bring in every so often to work on personal projects. My boss' reaction to asking was "If you're working on a personal project, what you learn is directly transferable" to paraphrase a bit. Amazingly cool.
I'm hoping that with this post I'll start a renewed desire to post more but I might be starting more music related posts. Part of me doesn't want to considering "music blogs" are a considerate portion of the online community map but perhaps I can find something to make it unique. Initially I hope to post reviews of some of my favorite bands latest works or critiques of the more recent concerts I've been to.
Here's a partial list of what's coming:
I also plan on actually writing music so my hope is to also use this blog to flesh out ideas and various universes characters can play in. My intention is to create moods using (hopefully) complete backstories in some ways like how Coheed & Cambria work but not directly. I suppose only time will tell if the idea is useful or useless.