'Welcome to the Family' - Avenged Sevenfold Review.

Do I Have Your Attention?

Welcome to the family! I write this review with the start of a new college year and also a lot of new arrivals at this college, and to those new arrivals who remember their induction days then you will remember Pauline Hagen mentioning that we are a family, I remember that after hearing it four times within the space of two days. If you think this has nothing to do with a music review, then it’s time you heard the epic ‘Welcome To The Family’ by none other than Avenged Sevenfold (I will later refer to them as A7X, for those who don’t understand the abbreviations). The first time I heard this song was when I was at my (Non-biological) little brother’s house. It was a fitting moment as his older sister had just brought home her newborn son. For amusement, and also because it was fitting to the situation, we stood at either side of the front door as she entered playing that very song. ‘Welcome To The Family’ is the second single on the fifth studio album from A7X, second to the single that shares the same name of the album, ‘Nightmare’.

On a number of occasions the song seems to be directed at the listener with loud exclamations such as ‘HEY!’ It’s the sort of song that, because you heard the first few seconds, you feel as if you need to hear the rest of the track, just to find out what the story has in store for the kid mentioned at the outset. The song demonstrates that, alone, you cannot accomplish much, but together, and as a family, you can do a lot more, and even if you still don‘t succeed then you have comfort in the family:

“I can see you’re a king who’s been dethroned,
Cast out in a world you’ve never known,
Stand down, place your weapons by your side,
It’s our war, in the end we’ll surely lose but that’s alright”
Not only does this show dedication to one-another, but it also shows unification that, through thick and thin, we are all a family.

There is so much depth to this song and I can’t start to go into every little detail, but what I can at least scratch the surface of is the music. After the tragic loss of Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan, A7X decided that they would call upon the help of The Rev’s idol, Mike Portnoy, to complete the album, including this song. The first thing you hear (other that the vocals) are the guitar riffs of Synyster Gates. Throughout this song, you can hear how much Synyster puts into it, as he always does.

I honestly wish I could go into so much more detail on this but I am writing this at midnight and I would take too much room on any format if I went into detail on everything.
Again, I have to give this song a rating, and that would have to be DDDDD! There is but one last thing to say here, and this is to all of the new year 12 students “Welcome to the family.”

Nathan "Dobby" Dobson