Avenged Sevenfold announces eighth studio album, live US dates

Band will play several shows in the US

Avenged Sevenfold has announced its long-awaited eighth studio record, Life Is But A Dream…, will hit store shelves and digital outlets on June 2nd via Warner Records. The set will be available on CD and 2 LP. The announcement comes with the release of the band’s first new single in seven years, “Nobody.” The video features a stop-motion clip directed by award-winning director Chris Hopewell.

The band will support the album’s release with two live shows this summer. The first is June 9th at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles with the second on June 23rd at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Tickets go on sale on Friday, March 17th and mark the band’s first proper Los Angeles area headlining performance since 2009 and their first New York City on-sale appearance since 2007. The band has also been announced as part of the Aftershock Festival lineup set for October in Sacramento, CA.

“Nobody” delivers delivers nearly six minutes of tension, groove, and dynamics. The song twists and turns beyond conventional songwriting and leans in on discomfort before letting go. The beautifully crafted stop-motion music video, which unfolds like a short film, is a stunning and powerful journey exploring the dichotomy between life and death, love and war, and follows the main character through an existential crisis. Stop motion is a handmade labor of love, often taking 90 minutes just to capture only two seconds of footage.

The band launched an elaborate and mysterious digital scavenger hunt leading up to the song, album and concert announcements. It was initiated as a cryptic hacker campaign on the band’s socials over the past two weeks which eventually led fans to the band’s website full of challenges and “unlocking” the track today (Tues, Mar 14th).

Written and recorded over the span of four years, Life Is But a Dream… was inspired by the writing and philosophy of Albert Camus. Accordingly, the lyrics are rooted in existentialism and absurdism. Always on the cutting edge of music and technology, Avenged Sevenfold has partnered with Berify to include an NFC tag with bonus content on all CDs, vinyl, cassettes and official merchandise sold on A7XWorld.com. Additionally, the cover art and packaging are by renowned artist Wes Lang.

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn