This review covers the metal track Avenged Sevenfold – Unholy Confessions.
This track was released in 2003 on the album Waking the Fallen.
The track starts with an effect, then a guitar. Other guitars and the drum kit then join the track. The vocals then join the track.
There is a drill on the drumkit’s kick for a moment before this is kicked off with a quiet part. This features a few short notes from a guitar and a few hits on the drum kit. After that, the track returns to a more full sound as the vocals take the track into the main chorus. Backup vocals are also present in this section. This is capped off with an instrumental section. After that, a guitar takes over on the left channel.
From there, the vocals return with the guitars no longer occupying the left channel exclusively. The vocals go through a verse before the track hits another instrumental section. Those vocals continue on for a bit before the track goes into another instrumental section.
After that, the vocals take the track into the main chorus. The guitars then hit a long note as if to go into an ending. Then, the guitars and drum kit return for another instrumental section. A few hits on the snare and the track then ends.
One thing I notice about this track is the structure. With so many small instrumental sections, I can tell that this is definitely not the typical structure of a rock track. Of course, there also has to be something that really binds the track well together to string that many of them together. Unfortunately, I don’t really get that binding aspect that would sell the track enough. As a result, the track comes off as just a set of ideas more or less thrown together.
Another issue with the track is that the vocals can be hard to understand from time to time. Sometimes, it’s the main chorus, but most of the time, it’s in the verses.
Having said that, the main chorus does actually sound great. The way the track comes together with both the guitars and vocals works really well. I find it a bit unfortunate that you seemingly have to wade through so much filler to get to the good parts of the track, but there is certainly positives to be heard in this one.
The instrumental sections actually do sound decent. Once you isolate one of them, it actually sounds pretty good. when you offset it with the main chorus, the track actually sounds like it balances out quite nicely. I think that maybe 2 (3 at most) would have been sufficient to have this be a satisfactory element. After that, it feels more like the artist is just beating you over the head with that one part of the track.
Overall, this is one of those tracks with strengths and weaknesses. On the weaknesses, there is overall structural problems with the track itself in that I don’t think it’s that cohesive. Additionally, the vocals are hard to understand at times. On the plus side, the main chorus and the instrumental sections do, on their own, sound very good. A problem with the instrumental sections is that it gets repeated a bit too much in the track itself. So, an OK track, but nothing huge.
Score
6.5/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
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