Jukebox:Metal

Avenged Sevenfold - Dear God

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impulse buy

Warner Bros.
Produced by Avenged Sevenfold

Although the self-titled album from which Dear God is taken has been out for some time, this single is being released as a limited edition to commemorate Avenged Sevenfold’s support tour with metal legends Iron Maiden, in particular the Twickenham Stadium show on July 5.

Alt-rock heroes turn to late-’80s/early-’90s country-rock balladry. Well that was unexpected. This could easily be on an Extreme or Mr. Big album and no one would notice. In actual fact, as this kind of thing goes, this is a pretty solid example. The vocals are suitably melodic but with that slight dryness necessary for their alt-rock credentials to remain intact, the acoustic melody is actually superb and there’s a neat little jagged riff later on for a bit of extra strength.

There are a couple of negative aspects though. It could probably do without the lap-steel melody in the background, and they’ve got the fade at the end completely wrong. The original track was over six minutes long, but the single edit is only 4:44. The fade is halfway through the tidy guitar solo during the obligatory end-build-up and feels very heavy handed; like they had a set length in mind and just added a crude fade-out at the appropriate point to achieve that length.

One thing’s for sure, if they play Dear God live when they support Iron Maiden, the crowd aren’t going to be particularly impressed, good song though it is.

by Andy Lye

“ country-rock balladry ”

Tracklist: Dear God (Single Edit) / A Little Piece of Heaven

Written by Andy Lye
More: Alternative, Singles, Avenged Sevenfold