Das letzte AVENGED SEVENFOLD Album „Hail to the King“ konnte mit großartigen Verkaufszahlen glänzen, erntete aber auch Kritik unter Fans für starke Anlehnungen an Heavy Rock im Sinne des „Schwarzen Albums“ von METALLICA.

Schlagzeuger Arin Ilejay erklärte nun in einem Interview mit dem Omaha World-Herald, dass das ein bewusster Schritt gewesen ist: „A lot of it had to do with growing up. At a young age, they wanted to show their interest, and their interest was deeply in hardcore. They had a bit of an awakening and said, ‚Let’s look back at our roots. What do we want to do? We really want to be heard everywhere, and we want to play everywhere.‘

So we asked, ‚What do the greats do? What are the bands that are still touring today that we loved as kids?‘ And those are bands like METALLICA and IRON MAIDEN. AVENGED SEVENFOLDwants to be a classic band, and we wanted to make a classic record that really explodes.“