Review Summary: Life Is But a Dream… uncovers many topics of the existential corners of mankind told in a unique narrative, but in the process, undermines its own efforts to explore outside of what it wanted to be.
It has been a long awaited return for heavy metal veterans Avenged Sevenfold since the release of their 2016, The Stage to which they have issued, Life Is But a Dream…. A near one-hour experience with this record has left me perplexed and a bit disappointed on many facets of the surface that we’ve been given. This latest release personifies many prospects of existentialism, artificial greed, and the core concept of God himself all while providing an experimentation and array of unique sounds brought together by familiar heavy instruments and the collaboration of the 78-piece San Bernardino Symphony. Life Is But a Dream… uncovers many topics of the existential corners of mankind told in a unique narrative, but in the process, undermines its own efforts to explore outside of what it wanted to be.
Avenged Sevenfold starts our newest journey with, “Game Over,” a track that explores many different stylistic movements with genre changes that include punk passages with diverse spanish guitar and orchestral woodwinds governing the section changes. The vocals and lyrics here are rather straightforward with not a lot of flair. The journey continues to worsen in the singles released prior to the album’s release, “Nobody,” and “We Love You.” Frontman, M. Shadows has always maintained this gritty and nasally vocal style that has carried him along the years, somewhat. However, these have to be some of the most insufferable vocal performances and sounds I have heard from him in the band’s history. Outside a poor vocal experience, each song’s compositions lack a cohesive foundation that feels uninspired which ultimately creates a mashup of different-sized lego pieces poorly connected together that attempt to recreate some sort of unique, experimental model. “Beautiful Morning” does not get any easier to digest with its lackluster melodies and vocal performance. The song features a guitar solo from lead guitarist Synyster Gates that captures so many sonic squeals and high registered misfires throughout. The one upside here is the incorporation of the Bridge’s provocative songwriting sung by Gates that was taken off the shelf from early collaborative songwriting brought by the band’s late drummer, Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan.
There were some redeeming moments of highlight to be mentioned where the band did achieve some special qualities. As the album starts to close, tracks like “(O)rdinary” takes on Daft Punk’s, Random Access Memories very close to the center. The song features clean funk guitar and funk-style bass with a pocketed backbeat coming from drummer Brooks Wackerman, who overall maintains his dynamic and explosive performances all throughout the record. Alongside its successor, “(D)eath,” these are tracks that the band has never explored before and do so rather well by keeping it simple and united. The title-track closer to the album is another unexplored venture that brings us to the end purely as a vintage piano instrumental. Largely, the production of the record clashes with itself 50/50 where there are pleasant sounding passages featuring rare instrumentals through a Rhodes piano and Wurlitzer organ in “Mattel” and symphonic swells featured in, “Cosmic” that really add a unique and wonderful dynamic to the sound. The negative comes from failed moments like in “Nobody” where the constant sixteenths on the hi hats over a repeating guitar line conflict with the vocal presence being sung. The former outweighs the latter by maintaining a strong sonic presence in a consistent manner.
Leading up to this record, the band has made sure to leave everyone aware that this project was going to sound different and that they were even prepared to receive a form of negative criticism. Life Is But a Dream… delves into many contrasting soundscapes that oftentimes exhaust and annoy the listening experience with dreadful attempts at singing “profound” lyrics and commonly occurring instrumental confrontations. There are few times where I did find myself indulging in their takes on avant-garde, chic/funk, and ballad-style influences where I think there were some rather unique successes in these endeavors, but the only sense of stability comes from the concept narrative told throughout the lyrics and dynamics, which are in themselves, not great. We are witnessing the spectacle of a dying star is the take-away from this record. In its center I am provided the warmth and comfort of what I most admire from this band, but the outer layers that reach me are nothing short of soft ambition that barely touches the surface of adhesion.
Author's note: As I still get acquainted with Sputnik's rating system, I found my personal score to align more with a 6/10 feeling. I felt that it was not fair to give this record a Sputnik 3 (Good) and more so aligned with a 2.5 (Average)
