Avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold are an American metal band from Huntington Beach, California, who formed in 1999. The current line-up is vocalist M. Shadows, guitarists Zacky Vengeance and Synyster Gates, bassist Johnny Christ and drummer Brooks Wackerman. They began with a metalcore sound on Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and Waking the Fallen, then moved towards more traditional heavy metal.

That shift arrived with City of Evil, their first major-label album, and the band kept changing course from there. Nightmare, released in 2010 after the death of founding drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, became their first US number one debut, with Mike Portnoy helping out on drums. Hail to the King, in 2013, paid tribute to their influences and topped the charts in the US and UK. The Stage in 2016 was a conceptual, progressive turn, and Life Is But a Dream… followed in 2023.