Avenged Sevenfold Unleash ‘Hail to the King’ Title Track

Forego a wake up dose of caffeine or coffee or whatever it is that you need to start your day. Turn your speakers up as high as they'll go. Have a listen to the title track and single from Avenged Sevefold's sixth album 'Hail to the King,' which is a midtempo rager that's distinctly A7X, full of galloping guitar solos and fist pumping chants.

Judging by several initial listens to the song, Avenged Sevenfold haven't lost a step. They're still churching out potent, puts-hair-on-your chest metal. This song pretty much positions the band to be Metallica's heir apparent, since they have a similar level of skill and metal moxie. The riffing is supremely potent and frontman M. Shadows is as full of vocal venom as ever. But there's also an element of classic rock thrown in for good measure.

Shadows acknowledged that the band took inspiration from new sources, at first telling Kerrang! (via Blabbermouth), "For the last few records, people have asked what we were listening to — and it's always been the same records, it hasn't changed. It's always been Pantera, Metallica, Megadeth and AC/DC."

The sphere of influence was widened this time out, as he continued, "We wanted to write a record that was highly influenced by the early '90s records and mid-'80s records we grew up on. Then we went back even further and were influenced by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. We studied those records, looked at what they were doing and how they were doing it. A lot of them came out of the blues, so we studied the blues and classical music. We just wanted to write a record that was different."

The new Avenged Sevenfold album is out Aug. 27 and it follows 2010's chart-topping 'Nightmare.' It's also a milestone in the band's catalog as it is the first album that was penned without drummer The Rev, who passed away in December 2009.