Friday: Avenged Sevenfold - I Won't See You Tonight, Pt. 2

     For your belated Flashback Friday post, I'd like you to close your eyes and cast your mind back to a time when Avenged Sevenfold was actually good. Or, if perhaps you've never dug any A7X, cast your mind back to a time when they were better than they are now. Either way, the time you're casting back to is the same: 2003.

     2003 saw the release of Avenged Sevenfold's sophomore album Waking the Fallen, which I still maintain is the band's shreddy metalcore masterpiece. The guys in Avenged have written some good jams since Waking, but this one got me into them in the first place and this one still finds the most space on my playlist to this day.

     The reason for this longevity is that Waking the Fallen has songs like "I Won't See You Tonight, Pt. 2". Don't get me wrong, the first movement of this two parter is a big metal ballad that starts off al little silly and then proceeds to stomp all over the line between badass and cheesy. But the second movement is where the guys show off their spastic shred metal chops in conjunction with the absolutely massive sense of melody they demonstrate all over the record. Love 'em or hate 'em now, I submit to you that Avenged Sevenfold used to be pretty rad.

Mandroid Echostar - The Sleeper

     In addition to being aware of my love for physical media, regular readers will likely also have picked up on my penchant for preordering. Whether it's in the form of an Indiegogo campaign or just a straight preorder, I enjoy knowing ahead of time that the album I'm looking forward to has already been paid for and will arrive at my door without any further action required on my part.

     The only downside is that stuff can sometimes take a while to arrive in the post, and although lots of bands are now mitigating this problem by issuing digital download codes on release day for fans who've purchased physical version of albums, I'm still a little old school in my desire to wait for my copy to arrive before I really sit down with a release. Sure, I'll stream or download on release day to keep up with the Joneses of music journalism, but it's only when I get my grubby mitts on a disc that I really delve into the material.

     For this reason, I was pleasantly surprised to find my copy of Mandroid Echostar's new EP in my mailbox earlier this week. For the unfamiliar, Mandroid is a techy Canadian band from Guelph that I've seen best described as sounding a little like Protest the Hero meets Coheed and Cambria. Their self-titled debut EP was pretty solid, and their new disc Citadels is more of the same: some really cool melodies spread across the soaring vocals and intricate guitar work and backed up by some tight and tasteful drumming.

     I almost want to go with "Ancient Arrows" as your song today, simply because the intro-y riff strikes me as the best Avenged Sevenfold lick Avenged never wrote, but I think I'm going to settle on "The Sleeper. For a guitar guy like me, this one's loaded: there's some fat riffage, some very video game-inspired tapping that opens and closes the song, and even a sweet little bluesy-sounding solo too.

     One problem/blessing in disguise? All I can find on Youtube is a stream of the whole EP, so you'll just have to ingest the whole thing, paying special attention to track five. Or just skip ahead to "The Sleeper". Either way, check these guys out pronto, and while you're at it check out the e-mail interview I did with Mandroid's singer Michael Ciccia back in the spring.

Song of the Day: Avenged Sevenfold - And All Things Will End

     I think we can probably all safely agree that the new Avenged Sevenfold song "Hail to the King" is pretty meh, at best. Can we all also collectively agree to go back to a time when Avenged Sevenfold was good?

Song of the Day: Avenged Sevenfold - Darkness Surrounding

     Today's song requires a little bit of a walk, but I promise I'll make it as quick and painless as possible. At work this summer, we've been listening to a lot of Sirius satellite radio. Mainly it's been Alt Nation, I'm pretty much the only metal enthusiast where I work, but the past couple of weeks there's been some Octane in the mix. Among the bands I've heard on there lately that I used to listen to but don't really follow anymore is Avenged Sevenfold. But Octane plays their newer stuff, and I was always a fan of their first couple of albums. True to form, today you're getting the song that first alerted me to the existence of Avenged Sevenfold.