Avenged Sevenfold is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band’s current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bassist and backing vocalist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman.

Avenged Sevenfold is known for its diverse rock sound and dramatic imagery in album covers and merchandise. Avenged Sevenfold emerged with a metalcore sound on the band’s debut Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and continued this sound through their second album Waking the Fallen. However, Avenged Sevenfold’s style had evolved by the band’s third album and first major label release, City of Evil, into a heavy metal and hard rock style. The band continued to explore new sounds with its self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James “The Rev” Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, Avenged Sevenfold continued on with the help of drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), and released and toured in support of its fifth album Nightmare in 2010, which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, Avenged Sevenfold’s first number one debut. Here are all of Avenged Sevenfold’s albums ranked from worst to best.

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7. Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001)

“For the non-metal and rock fans, listen to the classics and drama behind the screaming. If you only hear screaming, heavy metal and rock, you don’t have a music ear. The singer Matthew Sanders (M. Shadows) has an amazing talent reaching highs and lows with a strong scream-like voice with no miss whatsoever even live. Thank you A7X for switching me from the Madonnas, Trances, EDMs, and Club Music, to only YOU. Love you, your style, your voices, the talents of the guitarists syncing with the drummer, and the hard work behind each and every song. I hear their Hail to the King new album being released on Tuesday the 27th of August 2013 and it is already pre-ordered. This latest album is inspired by the group gathering and listening to classical music from Bach, Mozart and others, and trying to understand what makes these classical composers so great. And they understood, wrote and produced songs that are nothing but their own style but with a greater classical and drama sense only a music ear can hear.”

6. Hail to the King (2013)

“Hail to the King was meant to draw inspiration from the Pantheon of Metal, imitating the sound of such bands as Metallica, Judas Priest, Motley Crüe and Black Sabbath. The result was a sound that either pays great homage or quite simply carbon copies the bands that they drew inspiration from. Knowing A7X like I do, having listened to them faithfully since City of Evil, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. All eleven songs produced for Hail to the King are solid, and though I am sad to see Portnoy leave the lineup, Arin Ilejay is a fantastic technical drummer and his work is excellent in this album.”

5. Nightmare (2010)

“Such a great recording ! This is a ten star review. So much fun to listen too, each one of these guys is super talented. Matt’s lovely voice, the highs and lows and everything in between, love his voice. Synyster is the best freakin guitar player with his ripping solos, so great. Zack, Johnnie and Brooks, man Brooks is awesome on those drums. Zacky is superb on the guitar and I especially love to hear his vocals. Johnnie is animated and has so much energy. Love these Cali boys and have to say that Nightmare is one of my favorite a7x CDs with Buried Alive one of my all time favorite jams…truly a work of art and almost to the point of tears of joy. Plenty of tears with So Far Away…stupendous…”

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4. The Stage (2016)

“I like that A7X doesn’t release the same music time and again. They found a formula that worked exceptionally well with City of Evil. Then they blew that up with Avenged Sevenfold. They merged their Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and City of Evil albums with Nightmare, went straight hard rock with Hail to the King. Now, they’ve released an actual, whole album. This means the songs all work together and means you should buy the whole album, not individual songs. Their style weaves in and out of prog metal to hard rock to heavy metal to metalcore to big band-meets-metal. It works as a whole. But it takes a few spins to understand the whole canvas they’ve painted.”

3. City of Evil (2005)

“Like probably most people reading this review my first taste of this band was a little song called “Bat Country” on my local alternative rock radio station. I was so impressed by that song that I went out and bought the CD. “City of Evil” quickly became one of my favorite albums of all time. Highlights on this album, for me, are “Sidewinder” and “Beast and the Harlot” both very different songs but my favorites for two different reasons. The former for the flamenco guitar work and the latter for The Rev’s amazing drumming.”

2. Avenged Sevenfold (2007)

“The amazing vocals are worthy of several paragraphs of praise, M Shadows is incredible. While Synyster belts out some unparalleled guitar that makes him worthy of a crown. The lyrics are good and thought provoking. Their songs deal with religion, politics, death, salvation, quirky love, and the common person (making them seem very in touch with the world). I give this album five stars all around, and I give the band two thumbs up. Keep up the good work guys!!!”

1. Waking the Fallen (2003)

“This album, “Waking the Fallen” by Avenged Sevenfold is a lesson to all bands out there on how to create a sound. Some bands try to change their sound throughout their many albums, from one album to the next. On this album, Avenged Sevenfold successfully changes their sound, on just one CD. This isn’t just one of those albums that bands release for the sole purpose of having a few “radio hits”. This band didn’t have any radio hits. Probably because their songs aren’t fit to enter the mainstream. None the less, it has a sound that most people would like. Meanwhile, you can tell that every single song on the album had extensive work put into it. The vast majority of them have catchy riffs that you can’t create off the top of your head. They take time to perfect. With this band’s prior album, “Sounding the Seventh Trumpet”, they decided to scream on the entire album. While not a choice I was fond of, they felt that was their style. This album brought singing into their music without losing the sound that the screaming creates. Every song tells a different story with it’s own unique sound, and doing that front to back is a feat that not many bands can pull off. Though if you’re not a fan of the angry yelling/screaming type music, this may not be the album for you as there are a lot of times when he lets his frustration out into songs.“