M. Shadows: The new Avenged Sevenfold album will be out before summer 2022

Over the course of the pandemic, Avenged Sevenfold have not been shy about their reluctance to release any new music until gigs return – and M. Shadows has just confirmed that, with the band now booking shows for next summer, a new record will be out “before then”.

Speaking on Louder Than Life Festival’s Twitch channel, the frontman is still keeping fairly quiet on what the sound or the content of the follow-up to 2016’s The Stage will be like, but at least fans finally have a bit of a timeframe for the release.

“The reason we don’t say much about the music is because we find that every single word we say about it just gets spun off, and there’s no way to describe music; it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s heavy, it’s fast…’ What are we gonna say about it?” Matt explains (transcribed by Kerrang!). “It’s a work of art that we’ve worked on for a long time, we had a bunch of personal things that we’ll explain later… but we’re booking shows for next summer, and the record will be out before then.”

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In February 2021, M. confirmed that the album was “70 per cent” done, with some string players still needing to come in, and mixer Andy Wallace then unable to travel due to COVID.

He also reiterated that it didn’t “make sense” for Avenged to put out new music without touring. “The world has changed,” he reasoned. “Put out a record on Spotify without touring for a rock band, it just doesn’t make sense to us. So we’re gonna wait till everything is back, then we’ll come out with the record, finish it up, and all will be good.”

Late last year, the vocalist told Kerrang! that the new A7X album “sounds nothing like The Stage – it’s a completely new direction, and it sounds nothing like anything we’ve done. That’s all I’ll say about it: it’s over the top, and it’s very eclectic and wild!”

Check out the full Twitch interview below:

And just the snippet about the new record:

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