AVENGED SEVENFOLD will release its sixth studio album, "Hail To The King", on August 27. The title and the cover artwork (see below) were uncovered via an online scavenger hunt that led fans to different web sites that were hosting puzzle pieces.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD will celebrate the album release by playing a free show at the Hollywood Palladium on August 26.

The new disc was once again produced by Mike Elizondo and will follow up 2010's "Nightmare", which earned the band its first No. 1 album on The Billboard 200 chart.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD frontman M. Shadows last year hinted at the direction of the band's next studio LP, telling Metal Hammer that it will not sound like "Carry On", the group's contribution to the video game "Call Of Duty: Black Ops II". Shadows explained, "The new album has a lot more of a [BLACK] SABBATH / [LED] ZEPPELIN feel to it than 'Carry On'. There's definitely more SABBATH in what we're writing, and we're proud of 'Carry On', but this album is going to be on a whole new level."

The new CD is the first to be wholly written without drummer and key songwriter James "The Rev" Sullivan, who died in December 2009. Shadows told The Pulse Of Radio that didn't stop the band from deciding to take a different direction. "We had a decision to make on this one," he said. "The decision was, okay, do we just make a record that everyone expects us to make, or do we just move forward and make another, different record that we feel more comfortable with, and we chose the latter. So right now we're looking forward to doing something new and exciting and fresh, and hopefully people give it a shot and like it."