The new Avenged Sevenfold album is 70 per cent finished, according to frontman M. Shadows.
The singer gave a status update on the Orange County quintet’s proposed follow-up to 2016’s The Stage during an interview with radio presenter Pablo from Minnesota’s 93X station.
"We have pretty much 70 percent of the record done,” the singer declared. “We have some things we can't finish right now 'cause of COVID — string players, et cetera. We know Andy [Wallace, A7X’s go-to mixing engineer, and the man who mixed Slayer classic Reign In Blood and Nirvana’s Nevermind] doesn't wanna travel, or his management doesn't want him to travel because of COVID. So there's just a lot of things going on.”
Earlier this year, in an interview with Kerrang!, Shadows predicted that his group’s next album will be “over the top… eclectic and wild!” and “a completely new direction” for the Californian metal band.
“It sounds nothing like anything we’ve done,” said the singer.
As he has done in the past, Shadows once again stated that the new A7X collection won’t be released in the midst of the current pandemic, but offered hope that the wait might not drag on too much longer.
"It doesn't make sense for us right now to put out a record and not be able to tour it,” he told 93X. “The world has changed. Putting 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.”
The full interview with M. Shadows is viewable below:
