“The Best of 2005-2013”
Avenged Sevenfold
Warner Brothers
Tracks: 18
Our score: 2 out of 5 stars
Warner Brothers has recently released a new “Best Of” double album featuring Avenged Sevenfold. The album titled “The Best of 2005-2013” features select tracks from the bands four albums with the label (City of Evil, Avenged Sevenfold, Nightmare and Hail to the King) along with three cover tracks and two previously unavailable songs from the bands eight year run with the famed label which are spread across two discs.
Having seen dozens and dozens of ”Best Off” albums come and go with little to no fan fair I was sort of hoping for a little more from Warner Brothers in regards to Avenged Sevenfold. However knowing the relationship between WB and the band was coming to an end in a not so pretty way we have this rather lackluster piece. Pretty quickly I noticed something sounded a little off with the tracks as they all seemed a bit thin and not as powerful as each track sounded on its original release. At first I had thought maybe it was just my speakers however re-listening to the album on a different system yielded the same results. Disc one of the set features three tracks from “City of Evil”, five tracks from “Avenged Seven Fold”, three from “Nightmare” and two from “Hail to the King”. Basically they stripped away some of the more unique pieces on the bands catalog and went straight for all the radio friendly stuff listeners have heard a million times over by now. What fans of the band might enjoy most is disc two of this release as it features three cover tracks pulled from two tribute records the band was a part of along with the tracks “Carry On” which was featured in the video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” and “Not Ready to Die” featured in the “Call of the Dead” video game. These two tracks along with “Walk”, “Flash of the Blade” and “Paranoid” were certainly the shining stars as they are not tracks heard as often as those found on disc one.
I would have thought that with the invention of ITunes and other digital media services that greatest hits releases like this would be a thing of the past or at-least reserved for late night info-mercials. Yet there are still handfuls of them released year after year where they are doomed to take up shelf space. Avenged Sevenfold “The Best of 2005-2013” seems to be another one of those releases as it really offers little to longtime fans of the band. Yes you get a hardcopy of a few rarer tracks but, how many people out there are rocking a Discman these days or don’t have some sort of mobile hook up for the media player where they would really need a hard copy? My advice, skip this release as all these tracks can be found on various streaming and download sites. You will not be missing anything by not purchasing a hardcopy of this release as even the packaging is a simple as it can be offering nothing new or original to fans of this era of Avenged Sevenfold.
Track Listing:
Disc 1
1.) Bat Country
2.) Beast and the Harlot
3.) Seize the Day
4.) Critical Acclaim
5.) Almost Easy
6.) Afterlife
7.) Dear God
8.) A Little Piece of Heaven
Disc 2
1.) Nightmare
2.) Welcome to the Family
3.) So Far Away
4.) Hail to the King
5.) Shepherd of Fire
6.) Walk (Pantera Cover)
7.) Flash of the Blade (Iron Maiden Cover)
8.) Paranoid (Black Sabbath Cover)
9.) Carry On
10.) Not Ready to Die