AVENGED SEVENFOLD has released the official Zoe Katz-directed music video for the song “Mattel”. The track is taken from the band’s latest album, “Life Is But A Dream…”, which came out in June. Written and recorded over the span of four years, it was produced by Joe Barresi and AVENGED SEVENFOLD in Los Angeles and mixed by Andy Wallace in the Poconos, Pennsylvania. The album is a journey through an existential crisis; a very personal exploration into the meaning, purpose and value of human existence with the anxiety of death always looming.
The album opener, “Game Over”, indicts the mundanity of everyday life, particularly one without purpose or fulfilment. “Mattel” goes on the offensive about the Barbie-girl-on-steroids artificiality of cities and suburbs, from fake pleasantries to fake grass. The lead single, “Nobody”, explores the ego death sought by mystics and shamans for millennia, the recognition that the self is an illusion, that we are everything and nothing at once. “We Love You” decries the rat race and “Cosmic” celebrates love traversing time, space, and evolution. “Beautiful Morning”, by contrast, is a darker existential crisis, giving false relief by the empty promises found in “Easier”. Tracks eight, nine, and ten form a triptych of sorts — “G”, “(O)rdinary” and “(D)eath”, or “GOD”. People wrap themselves in The Secret, manifestation, or religion, but God? God sees them all as obsessive fans who missed the point and simply hit reset. The robot that follows ponders the nature of consciousness. Following “(D)eath”, the title track is a piano number tickling toward sweet oblivion.
Far from nihilistic despair, the expansive themes and existentialist exploration of “Life Is But A Dream…” offer more of a celebration and liberation of life while exploring the possible illusion of free will and determinism. The aim is for the audience to aspire, in life, to what AVENGED SEVENFOLD aspires to in art. Confrontation, reinvention, acceptance, surrender, struggle, and the courage to fail, on our own terms, with integrity.
“There are no rules. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks,” singer M. Shadowspoints out. “One day, we’ll all be gone, and eventually we’re all forgotten. So, once you find your own purpose, go for it.”
“Life Is But A Dream…” sold 36,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release to land at position No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart. AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s previous LP, “The Stage”, debuted at No. 4 on The Billboard 200 album chart in November 2016. The surprise release of “The Stage” earned the lowest sales of an AVENGED SEVENFOLD album in eleven years. It sold 76,000 copies in its first week, less than half the tally of its previous two efforts.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD made its first festival appearance in five years on May 19 at Welcome To Rockville at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s first concert since June 2018 took place on May 12 at AREA15 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In April, AVENGED SEVENFOLD announced the second leg of its extensive “Life is But A Dream…” North American tour featuring support from FALLING IN REVERSE. Produced by Live Nation, leg two includes stops in Nashville, Denver, Austin, and more before concluding at Fort Worth’s Dickies Arena on October 15.
The first leg with support from ALEXISONFIRE and KIM DRACULA included thirteen cities across the U.S. and Canada, such as Mansfield, Québec City, Tinley Park, Calgary, and more.
