Avenged Sevenfold, the uber-successful metal band from California, may not be your first resource for learning about religion. Let me rephrase that: Avenged Sevenfold certainly should not be your primary catechetical resource. For over twenty years, the band has been creating music that blends genres, reaches the pinnacle of commercial success, and toes the “edgy” line so many angsty teenagers long to walk.
I will admit, I was one of those teenagers. I first heard A7X (as the cool kids refer to them) when I was twelve years old. The song “Afterlife” blared through my speakers as I booted up the video game NHL09.
The raging guitars, pounding double kick drums, guttural screams, and syncopated patterns captivated my imagination. Immediately, I began saving money so I could buy their albums on iTunes (Do you remember those days?). I can still remember listening to the band’s second album Waking the Fallen through my headphones in the backseat of my grandmother’s car.
Since those halcyon days I have been a fan of Avenged Sevenfold. I have watched and listened to their music change, progress, regress, and evolve. Nonetheless, a consistent theme has permeated Avenged Sevenfold’s discography: God.
After all, the band’s name refers to the mark of Cain. After Cain slays his brother Abel, God declares, “Whoever Kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” Debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet takes its title from the Book of Revelation, and each subsequent album has at minimum one song exploring some facet of God and religion.
I was too young to recognize these themes when I first began listening to Avenged Sevenfold. Having matured over the years (to varying degrees depending on who you ask), I have had more presence of mind to reflect on what these rockers are saying/screaming. This has provided insight, at least for myself, into how the secular, nonreligious world understands God.
We can easily dismiss cultural phenomena like Avenged Sevenfold because they are so incongruous with our faith. That is true, and this piece is not an endorsement of the band’s views. I am, however, positing that when a band has sold more than eight million albums and remained relevant for over two decades while consistently addressing God, we should ask, “Hey, what is going on there?”
Our faith has the answers, and we should not be afraid to declare them.
I began asking myself this question seriously when Avenged Sevenfold released their eighth and most recent studio album Life is But a Dream… in June 2023. The genre-bending album took many by surprise with sounds ranging from thrash metal to Frank Sinatra-esque piano ballads. Despite this musical rollercoaster, true to form, the band once again confronted the one theme they cannot escape.
The entire Life is But a Dream… album carries a sense of nihilism, cynicism, and criticism. Titles like “Mattel” attack a consumerist culture that provides exactly what we want when we want it to a point that we no longer live in reality (“Now I know this might sound crazy, but I’ve smelled the plastic daisies, and it seems we’ve found ourselves in hell”).
Similarly, the single “We Love You” condemns the constant pursuit of worldly goods and simultaneous coddling that ignores the individuality of human souls (“Look at the way you go, you’re one in a million, and you know it shows. We love you”).
On the surface, these lyrics align with Catholic teaching and a lesson Bishop Barron returns to often: surrender the desires for wealth, pleasure, honor, and glory, and “strive first for the kingdom of God.”
Unfortunately, instead of turning toward God, Avenged Sevenfold turns away from everything and falls into a nihilism that is both untrue and unhelpful. The band misinterprets and misunderstands how God answers the questions and criticisms they so aptly identify.
Three specific tracks on this album exemplify Avenged Sevenfold’s misstep: “G,” “(O)rdinary,” and “(D)eath.” When the first letters of each song are combined they spell “God,” a not-so-hidden nod to the person with which the band contends.
From the opening lyrics of “G,” we realize that this will not be a friendly encounter:
And you know what I need?
Put your hands together
Get down on your knees
Or climb a hill and just don’t talk
I never made a man
Didn’t trip when they walk the walk.
The song only degenerates further, mocking how God created the world (“On the seventh day I thought about world peace, but I decided just to take it off) and how religious people pray, (“Prayed so hard and oh my Lord I got a spot at the front of the lot”).
As the song progresses God realizes that he made a mistake in creating humans and asks for a “delete” button before declaring that it was “not bad for a first try.” Before the seamless segue into the next song, God enigmatically concludes, “When robot?”
An uncharacteristically groovy song reminiscent of Daft Punk, “(O)rdinary answers the question posed. In this story, a robot wonders when he will be made fully human: “Will you give me my own soul? Control?” It is a creepy set of lyrics in the less than three minute song that climaxes with the robot asking, “Can you feel my love?”
Given this song’s place in the trio of pieces, it is clear that Avenged Sevenfold is exploring the idea that some form of artificial intelligence should be the next evolution of humanity. I shudder thinking about this, particularly because of the final song (with lyrics) on the album.
“(D)eath” makes its theme known in the title, but it hides something much more sinister, as the protagonist ultimately takes his own life: “Write a note of a few things I want to say . . . I leap into the darkest night.”
It is a heartbreaking but proper conclusion to an album titled Life is But a Dream… because, if it is, it would be perfectly reasonable to desire waking up.
No matter how well crafted and catchy these songs are, I constantly struggle with whether or not I should listen to this album. These lyrics contain so many erroneous representations of God, his relationship to humanity, and religious people’s faith.
How could someone prove so severely misguided that the religion and God they describe is not remotely close to the religion we practice or the God we worship?
God does not need our prayers. When we climb a hill, ostensibly a metaphor for the suffering we all experience, God does not demand our silence. Nor does God cause us to trip as we make our way through life. Proper prayer does not treat God like a gumball machine. Robots cannot and will never be able to love. And finally, it hardly needs to be said that this life is not a dream, and removing yourself from it is not the answer, no matter how painful the suffering.
That being said, engagement with this type of art, as long as you remain properly oriented, can provide answers to the question I posed above. How could someone prove so severely misguided that the religion and God they describe is not remotely close to the religion we practice or the God we worship?
The responsibility for this confusion unfortunately lies on the shoulders of the faithful. Avenged Sevenfold is not anomalous in their beliefs. Millions of people share or empathize with what the band describes. There is a reason they have sold so many albums and remained so relevant for twenty five years. Christians for decades have too timidly shared the robust intellectual tradition of our faith that answers the precise questions posed by Avenged Sevenfold.
For every lyric from Avenged Sevenfold mockingly singing, “Put your hands together, get down on your knees,” there is a response from G.K. Chesterton in his poem “The Convert”: “After one moment when I bowed my head, and the whole world turned over and came upright.” When the lead singer cries in the place of the robot, “Will you give me my own soul?” St. Faustina responds, “A humble soul does not trust itself, but places all its confidence in God.”
Our faith has the answers, and we should not be afraid to declare them. When we engage with a piece of secularist culture, like Life is But a Dream…, we are colliding with forces that approach from completely different perspectives. It is our duty as Christians to recognize, understand, and empathize without compromising or hiding. Otherwise, voices like Avenged Sevenfold will continue to resonate with people starving for a relationship with God because they feel they have nowhere else to turn.
There is, of course, somewhere else to turn. More precisely, there is someone else. His voice is more powerful than any screams, guitars, or drum sets that Avenged Sevenfold has at their disposal. But we are the instruments he uses, and if we remain silent, the music will cease.