For an album plagued by macho metal posturing, it comes at a key moment. While the band's slower songs are usually hit or miss, ranging from great ("I Won't See You Tonight, Pt 1"), to the mediocre ("Warmness On the Soul"), to flat out awful ("Dear God"), they're excellent this time around. Eschewing the sometimes noteworthy, sometimes half-baked metal sound established earlier, Avenged Sevenfold embrace both acoustic pieces and ballads alike. "God Hates Us" aside, the second half of Nightmare is where things get really interesting.
Granted, so long as you can make it through the poor attempts at groove influenced metal, that is. With the exception of "God Hates Us" and "Buried Alive", guitarists Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance do transition back into their melodic tendencies in choruses, instrumental breaks, and the like, making for a much more engaging listen.
Or it feels that way at any rate Nightmare's sixty-six minutes run shorter than both Waking the Fallen and City of Evil, and though the majority of the record's rockers are only around five minutes long, they do not flow as fluidly as they could. It's a problem closely related to Nightmare's other huge issue: the album is too damn long. It's obvious that they love Pantera and Metallica, but the chunky, down-tuned groove riffs sounded terrible in the '90s, and sound terrible in " Nightmare", "Welcome to the Family", "Buried Alive", and especially "God Hates Us". The results are predictably less than adept when they get heavier. Avenged Sevenfold have always been at their best when they focus on playing infectious melodic metal (or metalcore), particularly through their utilization of Iron Maiden inspired guitar harmonies. Nightmare isn't an easy album to dive into for two major reasons, both of which hold back several otherwise decent tracks. While they've previously been able to overcome their weaknesses, the strongest moments on Nightmare aren't quite good enough to hide Avenged Sevenfold's flaws. But then again, even Avenged Sevenfold's good albums have unfortunate moments (the bro-downs in Sounding the Seventh Trumpet's "Thick and Thin", the mundane pace in Waking the Fallen's "Desecrate Through Reverence", the clumsy songwriting in City of Evil's "Betrayed"). Given the terrible rut the band worked themselves into on their self-titled record and the less than stellar "Nightmare" and "Buried Alive", previewed in the weeks leading up to the album's release, Nightmare's prospects didn't look good. If there's a grey area between solid return to form and stagnant mediocrity, this is more or less where Avenged Sevenfold hits the mark with Nightmare. Review Summary: While Avenged Sevenfold have previously been able to overcome their weaknesses, the strongest moments on Nightmare aren't quite good enough to hide its flaws.
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