Nightmare Cover Art Essay

Avenged Sevenfold is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California. The band was formed in 1999. Presently, they consist of Matt Shadows(Vocalist), Johnny Christ(Bassist), Zacky Vengeance(Rhythm Guitarist) and Synyster Gates(Lead guitarist). Matt Sanders(M. Shadows); the lead singer of the band is one of the original founding members. He came up with the band name on being inspired by the fourth chapter in the Book of Genesis. It involves God asking Cain where his brother, Abel was. Cain answered that he didn’t know, when in fact, he had killed Abel. â€Å"†¦ whoever kills you will suffer seven times the vengeance.† (Genesis 4:15, International Standard Version). Jonathan Seward(Johnny Christ) is the fourth bassist, and joined the band while he was still in High School in the year 2003. He is the youngest and shortest in the band. Zack Baker(Zacky Vengeance) is the band’s left-handed rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist. Zacky was a self-taught guitarist and would play his dad’s right-handed guitar upside-down by watching his favourite bands play and other people he knew that played, and practised as much as he could. Brian Haner Jr.(Synyster Gates) plays the lead guitar, and does backup vocals for the band. His father is Brian Haner. He also plays in some Avenged Sevenfold tracks. He mostly plays acoustic guitar solos that duel back and forth with Synyster’s electric guitar and also helped his son write â€Å"So Far Away†, a track on the band’s latest album that Brian had finished writing in memory of his late best friend and band-mate, Jimmy â€Å"The Rev† Sullivan. The Rev was known to the world as one of the greatest drummers of all time. He passed away on 28th December 2009, due to an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. Avenged Sevenfold kicked off with a metalcore sound on their first album ‘Sounding the Seventh Trumpet’, which included a lot of screaming vocals and heavy-metal guitar riffs. They then changed their style on their third release, ‘City of Evil’, which featured more of a mainstream hard rock style. They have still retained their heavy metal feel by using blazing guitar solos and blistering double-bass drumming patterns, while keeping their musical aggression at a minimum level compared to their earlier work which makes their music all the more appealing to the larger crowd. â€Å"The Rev ‘Seized the Day’ to conquer the ‘City of Evil’ in ‘Bat Country’, and forced the ‘Beast and the Harlot’ to ‘Scream’ their ‘Unholy Confessions’. He left them ‘Trashed and Scattered’ and ‘Blinded In Chains’ with the ‘Strength of the World’. He found it ‘Almost Easy’ and became a ‘Sidewinder’ and slithered to ‘A Little Piece of Heaven’ in his ‘Afterlife’, now he is ‘M.I.A.’ and his ‘Nightmare’ has come to pass. RIP Jimmy â€Å"The Rev† Sullivan, you’re gone but NEVER forgotten!† Sevenfold, A. (n.d.). Quote by Avenged Sevenfold. Retrieved December 10th, 2012 from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/308559-the-rev-seized-the-day-to-conquer-the-city-of This meaningful quote is a tribute to the late legend and also uses quite a few of Avenged Sevenfold’s track names as characteristics of the quote to convey a very important message about The Rev’s personality. Avenged Sevenfold has released five studio albums, fifteen singles, and one live album/compilation. The album artwork of their latest album ‘Nightmare’ deeply reflects on the music and the band’s life without their beloved friend, The Rev. The musicality has advanced since their emergence and this is their most technically advance album yet. At first glance, it’s no doubt that the band is Avenged Sevenfold. Not just because of the text stating the obvious, but because of their signature symbol that they have made known all over the world as the â€Å"Deathbat†. It was originally designed by their high school friend named Micah Montague. The Deathbat is the key element in almost any Avenged Sevenfold image or poster and has also appeared on every album cover, many of which were done by Cameron Rackam, a close acquaintance of the band. Another key element in this album’s artwork is the noticeable highlighting of the alphabets ‘REV’ in the word ‘Forever’ on the tombstone. There is a pretty deep connection through whic h emotions play a major role as to how the overall message is being conveyed, which in this case is the fact that The Rev; who was by no doubt a great person and who was loved by the whole world; has moved on into his afterlife and that his memories will be treasured in everyone’s hearts and minds ‘foREVer’. With regard to color theory, it’s safe to say that Nightmare’s album art is analogous in nature. Ranging from the green(dark; leaves) end to the blue end of the color spectrum wheel. In terms of temperature, this artwork has been designed to incline more towards the cooler half of the spectrum as it can be easily inferred because of its blue sky, especially at the point where the smoke is lighter in colour, in turn providing a chilled and cold effect. The girl’s pale skin is also a sign of fear which is a marvellous combination of taking the word ‘cold’ both, literally as well as metaphorically. The fonts used are pretty spooky too. The frequent uneven thickness in certain parts of different letters in ‘Avenged Sevenfold’ makes it the most noticeable component of the art. Also, as it is white in colour, it stands out from the rest of the contrasting colours. The red ‘Nightmare’ is the only warm colour used in the entire cover. It must be so because the artist was trying to convey feelings of passion and love towards their late friend. But also since the font has more edgy feel to it, it could have slight traces of anger and anxiety too. The deathbat here is no longer just a floating skull with small wings. The symbolism used here shows that the band has grown in maturity as well as musically; hence the large deathbat with a cloak covering its presently unknown body. The album is titled ‘Nightmare’ as it is a dark word that sends shivers down one’s spine. They’ve used a good combination of the cold environment in the picture along with the hot portrayal of the album-name(red in colour). It is called so because on the day they completed writing the record’s lyrics, The Rev admitted that he was totally excited and eager to record this album. But sadly, he passed away three days after that. This came as a shock to everyone and was a nightmare to the band. Hence they dedicated this album to him. Every time I look at the cover while listening to any of this album’s songs, it feels as though a story is being told. Every song is a reminder of The Rev and that was another reason why this album topped the billboard charts, standing at #1 in the first week itself. This album really connected to all Avenged Sevenfold fans.