Correction appended: The Michigan Pops concert will begin at 7 p.m.
Avenged bring nothing new
Avenged Sevenfold is a product of its time. The band’s fourth disc is more like a random selection of musical trends absorbed into the band’s Guitar Hero-approved blend of modern rock and ’80s metal than a cohesive album.
The SoCal outfit transitions through country, pop-punk and chugging show tunes with the aid of a choir and orchestra.
But the list of genres can’t save the weak base of Avenged Sevenfold’s sound. The heavy-metal, double-bass drumming is uninspired, and the addition of miserable-sounding, tired modern rock doesn’t help. Even the few unexpected musical additions that don’t immediately come off as a novelty are inevitably buried beneath tapping guitars or the tortured howling of vocalist M. Shadows.
M. Shadow’s morbid lyrics vary from self-righteous (“Critical Acclaim”) to religious (“Brompton Cocktail”) and even predatory (“Scream”). The most disturbing moment comes when Shadows combines the morbid with the romantic, resulting in the necrophilic “A Little Piece of Heaven.” On the track, Shadows celebrates a now “perfect” sex life with a former flame he will preserve with a “heater for her thighs.”
The band just attempts to synthesize too many elements in Avenged Sevenfold, producing an inconsistent mess of drawn-out guitar solos and Now That’s What I Call Music.
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Avenged Sevenfold
Avenged Sevenfold
Warner Bros.
Pops plays film songs
This Sunday, the oldest popular music campus orchestra in the country will unleash its inner beast. Michigan Pops is made entirely of students (graduate and undergraduate). This year’s new music director, Alex Sutton, who worked with the orchestra previously as a choral director and an assistant conductor, veritably gushes with enthusiasm about this year’s performance.
“The orchestra has been working tirelessly, and they’re very, very eager to perform the music for an audience,” Sutton said in a phone interview. Sunday’s selections will be based around the theme of “Pops Goes Wild,” with music from “Jurassic Park,” the 1930s version of “King Kong” and possibly the greatest Disney movie of all time, “The Lion King.” Pops will also perform several classical pieces, like “The Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saens.
The orchestra’s unorthodox spirit is perhaps its greatest asset. “It’s music you don’t frequently hear in the concert halls,” Sutton said. “I mean, I don’t think you’re going to hear the New York Philharmonic playing ‘Tarzan.’ Michigan Pops, on the other hand, will, and if its past performances are any indicator, it will do it superbly.
“Pops Goes Wild”
Sunday at 7 p.m.
At the Michigan Theater
$5 w/ student ID/$8