Avenged Sevenfold is an American heavy metal band from California.

Consists of Vocalist By Matt Shadow, Lead Guitarist Synister Gates, Rhytym guitarist Zacky Vengeance, And Bassist Johny Christ.

They are known for their diverse heavy metal sound, dramatic imagery in album covers and t-shirts. Avenged Sevenfold emerged with a metalcore sound on their debut Sounding the Seventh Trumpet but their style had evolved by their third album and first major label release, City of Evil into a hard rock/heavy metal sound. The band continued to explore new sounds with their self-titled release and enjoyed continued mainstream success before their drummer, James "The Rev" Sullivan, died in 2009. Despite his death, the band continued on with help of now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy and released and toured in support of their fifth album Nightmare in 2010 which debuted on the top spot of the Billboard 200, their first number one debut. To date, Avenged Sevenfold has released five studio albums, one live album/compilation/DVD, and eighteen singles and sold more than four million album worldwide. The band has received much credit for their worldwide mainstream success and were featured as second place on Ultimate Guitar's Top Ten Bands of the Decade.Discography: Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (2001) Waking the Fallen (2003) City of Evil (2005) Avenged Sevenfold (2007) Nightmare (2010)

"When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I don't want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing.'" On City of Evil, Avenged Sevenfold's third album, the band chose to abandon the metalcore genre, developing a more hard rock style. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album, again, consists of several deviations to less consistent genres and styles from the album's main hard rock and heavy metal songs, most notably in "Dear God", which adopts a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction" and a brief return to their metalcore roots on "God Hates Us". The band has changed considerably since their first album, in which during that time they have been characterized as a heavy band with a screamed and growled vocal style combined with clean vocals, chugging guitar riffs and breakdowns that one can expect from the metalcore genre. Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 35, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames.[49] On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer. The same night the band won three awards for "Best Vocalist" (M. Shadows), "Epiphone Best Guitarist(s)" (Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance) and "Afflictions Album of The Year: " for Nightmare, while Mike Portnoy won the award for "Drum Workshops Best Drummer For his work on the album.

The band has cited bands such as Bad Religion, Guns N' Roses, Iron Maiden, Pantera, Dream Theater, Metallica, NOFX, Alice in Chains, Black Flag, Corrosion of Conformity, The Misfits, Slayer, The Vandals, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones and AFI as their artistic influences. Avenged Sevenfold's material spans multiple genres and has evolved over the band's entire career. Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of metalcore sound; however, there were several deviations to this genre, most notably in "Streets" which adopts a punk style and "Warmness on the Soul," which is a piano-oriented ballad.[54] On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed the contemporary metalcore style once more, but added more clean vocals as well as more mature and intricate musical elements. In the band's DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Mudrock explained this transition:

Take the time just to listen When the voices screamin' are much to loud Take a look in the distance Try and see it all Chances are that ya might find That we share a common DISCOMFORT NOW I feel I'm walking a fine line Tell me only if it's real Still I'm on my way (On and on it goes) Vacant hope to take HEY I CAN'T LIVE IN HERE FOR ANOTHER DAY DARKNESS HAS KEPT THE LIGHT CONCEALED GRIM AS EVER HOLD ON TO FAITH AS I DIG ANOTHER GRAVE MEANWHILE THE MICE ENDURE THE WHEEL Real as ever And it seems I've been BURIED ALIVE!!! I walked the fields through the fire Taking steps until I found solid ground Followed dreams reaching higher Couldn't survive the fall Much has changed since the last time And I feel a little less certain now You know I jumped at the first sign Tell me only if it's real Memories seem to fade (On and on it goes) Wash my view away HEY I CAN'T LIVE IN HERE FOR ANOTHER DAY DARKNESS HAS KEPT THE LIGHT CONCEALED GRIM AS EVER HOLD ON TO FAITH AS I DIG ANOTHER GRAVE MEANWHILE THE MICE ENDURE THE WHEEL REAL AS EVER And I'm chained like a slave Trapped in the dark Slammed all the locks Death calls my name And it seems I've been BURIED ALIVE Take you down now Burn it all out Throw you all around Get you're fuckin' HANDS OFF ME What's it feel like? Took the wrong route Watch it fall apart Now you're knockin' AT THE WRONG GATE For you to pay the toll A price for you alone The only deal you'll find I'll gladly take your soul While it seems sick Sober up quick Psycho lunatic Crushing you with HANDS OF FATE Shame to find out when it's too late But you're all the same Trapped inside INFERNO AWAITS Evil thoughts can hide I'll help release the mind I'll peel away the skin Release the dark within THIS IS NOW YOUR LIFE STRIKE YOU FROM THE LIGHT THIS IS NOW YOUR LIFE DIE BURIED ALIVE [X2] THIS IS NOW YOUR LIFE DIE BURIED ALIVE

Gravity don't mean too much to me I'm who I've got to be These pigs are after me, after you Run away like it was yesterday And we could run away If we could run away, run away from here I got a bulletproof heart You got a hollow point smile We had our run away scarves Got a photograph dream on the getaway mile Let's blow a hole in this town And do our talking with the laser beam Coming out of this place in a bullet's embrace Then we'll do it again How can they say, Jenny could you come back home? 'Cause everybody knows you don't Ever wanna come back, let me be the one to save you Gravity don't mean too much to me I'm who I've got to be These pigs are after me, after you Run away like it was yesterday When we could run away When we could run away, run away from here I'm shooting out of this room Because they sure don't like the company You stop your preaching right there 'Cause I really don't care and I'll do it again So get me outta my head 'Cause it's getting quite cramped, you know Coming ready or not, when the motor gets hot We can do it again The papers say, Johnny won't you come back home? 'Cause everybody knows you don't wanna give yourself up Tell the truth and God will save you Gravity don't mean too much to me I'm who I've got to be These pigs are after me, after you Run away like it was yesterday And we could run away And we could run away, run away from here And though I know how much you hate this Are you gonna be the ones to save us From the black and hopeless feeling? Will you meet 'em when the end comes reeling? Hold your heart into this darkness Will it ever be the light to shine you out Or fall and leave you stranded? Or are you gonna be the one left standing? You're gonna be the one left standing You're gonna be the one left standing Gravity don't mean too much to me Is this our destiny? This world is after me, after you Run away like it was yesterday And we could run away, run away, run away Run away from here, yeah Away from here, away from here

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878[1] 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party. This included Leon Trotsky, the Red Army organizer, proponent of world revolution, and principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders, who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Instead, Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. In 1928, Stalin replaced the New Economic Policy of the 1920s with a highly centralised command economy and Five-Year Plans, launching a period of rapid industrialization and economic collectivization in the countryside. As a result, the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian society into a great industrial power, and the basis was provided for its emergence as the world's second largest economy after World War II.[2] However, during this period of rapid economic and social changes, millions of people were sent to penal labor camps,[3] including many political convicts, and millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[3] The initial upheaval in the changing agricultural sector disrupted food production in the early 1930s, contributing to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 19321933, one of the last major famines in Russia. In 193738, a campaign against former members of the communist opposition, potential rivals in the party, and other alleged enemies of the regime culminated in the Great Purge, a period of mass repression in which hundreds of thousands of people were executed, including Red Army leaders convicted in coup d'tat plots. In August 1939, after the failure to establish an Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance,[5] Stalin's USSR entered into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, dividing their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. This pact allowed the Soviet Union to regain some of the former territories of the Russian Empire in Poland, Finland, the Baltics, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina during the early period of World War II. After Germany violated the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941 and thus opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history, the Soviet Union joined the Allies. Despite heavy human and territorial losses in the initial period of war, the Soviet Union managed to stop the Axis advance in the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad. Eventually, the Red Army drove through Eastern Europe in 194445 and captured Berlin in May 1945. Having played the decisive role in the Allied victory, the USSR emerged a recognized superpower after the war. Stalin headed the Soviet delegations at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, which defined the map of postwar Europe. Communist-dominated leftist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were installed in the Eastern Bloc satellite states as the USSR entered a struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War, with the United States and NATO. In Asia, Stalin established good relations with Mao Zedong and Kim Ilsung, and the Stalin-era Soviet Union in various ways served as a model for the newly formed People's Republic of China and Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). In power until his death in 1953, Stalin led the USSR during the period of post-war reconstruction, marked by the dominance of Stalinist architecture (most famously represented by the Stalin skyscrapers). The successful development of the Soviet nuclear program enabled the country to become the world's second nuclear weapons power; the Soviet space program was started as spin-off of the nuclear project. In his last years, Stalin also launched the so-called Great Construction Projects of Communism and the Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature. Following his death, Stalin and his regime have both been questioned on numerous occasions, the most significant of these being the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, when Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced his legacy and drove the process of de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. Modern views of Stalin in the Russian Federation remain mixed, with some viewing him as a tyrant[9] while others consider him a capable leader.