LIBAD is my favorite album, I’ve known this album since 2024 (the same time I was going through my initial Nihilism/existentialistic part of my life).
Avenged Sevenfold, if you didn’t know, is a Prog – Metal band born in the 2000’s. They initially were an emo-Ish band and later evolved into a more unique identity. Their highs were fumbled in 2011 (I think it was around that time) when their drummer, the legendary “The Rev”, passed away from, if I’m not mistaken, overdose.
After finishing the album that was mid making when The Rev sadly passed away (“Nightmare”, my second favorite album), they diverged into a more progressive metal path. “The Stage” is proof of that.
In the times of Covid-19, they started working on LIBAD, an album that experiments topics like existentialism, nihilism, creation and death, god and many more.
And this album is a fucking masterpiece. It is a fucking wild ride.
“Game Over” is the first song. It’s usually hits as shocking and different for everyone (and even for metal fans!) but it’s such a banger. It’s first riff is simple and the drumming is frenetic – which goes well with the fact that the vocalist (M. Shadows) is just summing up how worthless and doubtful life kinda is. It’s an introduction to the album.
Mattel goes into the whole thing of simulation, but not like “Simulation” from their previous album. For me, this song is about existentialism. It asks about reality. And shows the anxiety of it. This is just my take of it, of course.
“And it seems we’ve found ourselves in…
hell”
The band has a very insane videoclip for this song btw. And some other cool videos with Mattel figures.
The song “Nobody” is the fan favorite for the community – and has the best solo I have ever listened. The solo gives a familiar vibe, a vibe of questioning, of dilemma, of confusion, of intricacy. The internal dialog that it gives seems complex and hard to deal with. It’s a discourse from a victim about himself or what he feels, or what he thinks, or many other things in my opinion.
Next comes “We Love You”. It’s about the expectations of civilizations and the human nature of not stopping, to keep going until it’s all over, for nothing. For me this song always reminded me of a poem of mine: Manjar – that kinda goes into to the idea that an animal (actually a human but whatever) is obsessed with eating and needs to be constantly eating. In this case, mankind fights for this cause: to seek validation by reaching some sort of level, realization. This, once again, Is just my take on the work.
Cosmic, though, is my favorite song:
Imo, it talks about creation and destruction, mostly the existence of death. You can find it (death) anywhere, you cannot escape it, and the beauty in that is very well portrayed in this song. The start has a an amazing solo that, even if not complex like in “Nobody” is so beautiful. I feel true pleasure when listening to that part. After the release of the solo, you get the “There you’ll find me part” which talks about the whole “creation and destruction” concept that I was talking about before.
When we arrive at the second release (the part where M. Shadows uses the synths), It’s when this masterpiece hits your soul, I usually get shivers in this part.
I love how unafraid they were about making these “strange” melodies – I don’t only tolerate the melodies, I vibe with them – they went all in. But now that I heard their newer single (“Magic”) I think they could’ve tried to deconstruct the works from LIBAD a little more.
Either way, I love this album so fucking much.
“Beautiful Morning” was a song that I used to just skip but after some months of loving this album, I managed to accept it and love it just like the other songs. This song is really abstract but my final take is that this song is, in the end, about depression and Nihilism.
The “Don’t let it be” part, in the end, is very relatable.
“Easier” is a bullseye. Every single line of the lyrics is relatable to me like holy shit. I once said to an ex-friend that “I love this band. This band feels like it was made for me or I was made for them” – that friend of mine made an interesting face. It never commented about it tho, but that reaction is still kinda stuck in my memory since then.
Fun fact, “Easier” originally was a song for “Waking The Fallen” - THEIR SECOND ALBUM, IT’S FROM 2003, 20 YEARS AGO!
I do wonder if any of them has ever gone through nihilism, maybe they did. “Nightmare” showed deep lyrics too.
But from what I know, this album was their first try in something completely new. Nihilism and existentialism were almost a brand new topic for them so HOW COULD THEY MAKE SOMETHING SO RELATABLE???
So if you were miserable enough to read all of my texts that are in Portuguese, you probably know that I’m not a fan of God. Guess what the next song is:
The song is called “G” (G-_-_).
It talks about the crazy side in believing and loving a god, and the perspective of actual god, that finds their obsession cringe.
It’s a good fun break in this heavy album.
“(O)rdinary“ (G-O-_) is next. It’s about looking up and asking to be looked at and not be ignored (we were always ignored, dropped into existence just like this, powerless and doomed to be little dolls to be toyed with).
“(D)eath” (G-O-D). The song is on purpose calm. The release of living (or of feeling) is so… hm
I have never done it, I'm still here duh. But I’ve imagined and dreamed of it and, in those cases, or I feel uncomfortable because I know I’m trapped or I feel well, because I’m so away from myself that I just dream of pure dark silence. Clean and pure quietness. Just thinking of it makes me well while writing this.
I’m crazy btw, I don’t know if you’ve noticed that yet.
The orchestra presents the initial beauty in the desire, but later, you notice that it’s just painful, useless dreaming, stupid, not real, and you face yourself.
And all you have, in the end, is this hollow man, a man that has nothing to live for, nothing to believe in. This man is in pain - or the pain is dull – and it does not matter if you accept it or not, you will have to deal with it.
And so we keep living, like this.
All this while the piano plays.
Only now that I noticed how similar the end of this album is with many of my older works. I always knew that I tended to go into the “that’s just how it is” ending constantly when writing works. I used to do this even before knowing this album. But only now that I’ve noticed that even the “Life Is But a Dream…” (The song’s name, not the album’s name) is really, really relatable to me.
One year and a half after the start of my nihilism and existentialistic crisis, only then I started realizing that maybe I won’t be able to understand many things, and yes, I might be seriously broken. But while I have this agnostic life, I better use it for good: to love, to be happy, to be empathic, and to live.
It took me time, and it’s not as much about realizing or understanding this. It’s more about getting through the pain and kinda forgetting it, unconsciously being able to not see the problems and notice what’s pretty and pleasant for you. And maybe, only then, you can hear the birds chirping and the colors in the bland grey.