Album Artwork Research: Avenged Sevenfold

Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare

'Nightmare' is the fifth full-length album from the Californian Hard Rock/Metal band Avenged Sevenfold. As the style of music that they make is overall fairly conventional of its genre, as too is the artwork, which mirrors these conventions to create a fairly typical album cover.

The main theme of this cover, and indeed the album’s contents stems from the death of the band’s drummer, Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan who passed away in December of last year prior to the albums completion. Obviously, this loss greatly affected the band, who decided to continue and put album out in tribute to him. The most notable way in which this is reflected through the artwork is through the image of a simplistic gravestone in the centre of the cover, with a single word ‘foREVer’ etched upon it. The word itself pays touching tribute, insinuating that he remains in their memory. Additionally, the middle three letters of ‘REV’ are emphasised through capitalization in reference to him, as this was his nickname – this would be instantly recognisable to the band’s established fan base, and likely to be immediately understood, as they would be aware of the recent events surrounding the album’s recording process. This links to the theory of audience gratification, establishing a link and connection between the artist and the audience.

The album title ‘Nightmare’ may also be in relation to the incidents relating to the process of the creation of this album – the tragic loss of such a close friend would be a dark and distressing period for any person, and this title parallels it to a horrific and terrifying dream. Nevertheless, this is a highly conventional title for an album of this genre, as common generic themes tend to be focused around ideas such as darkness, terror and intimidation, for example in reflection of the musical style – whether particularly relevant as in this instance or otherwise.

Another key theme or aspect to this album cover is a multitude of references to particular ‘horror movie’ stereotypes. For instance, the lower half of the cover is mainly consumed by a large image of a young girl lying awake in bed. This image plays on the conventional gender stereotypes of the innocent and defenceless little girl – typically always the horror film victim. This is supported through the mise-en-scene, in the way that she is dressed in pink pyjamas and is clutching a white teddy bear. Overall, this helps to convey the idea of vulnerability and perhaps naivety – the colour connotations of the baby pink representing youthfulness and weakness combining with the connotations of innocence and purity associated with the colour white. The look on her face is one of sheer terror, further emphasising her defencelessness.

Above the girl is what appears to be some form of menacing, undead creature. This is perhaps synonymous with the name of the album – ‘Nightmare’, i.e. a horrendous dream in which ‘monsters’ are typically a prominent feature – particularly in childhood. The creature looms tall above the girl, her lesser status indicated by the fact that she consumes significantly less of the frame. The winged creature is a likely reference to the band’s logo, the ‘Deathbat’. This has featured on almost every cover, both singles and albums, that the band have put out, with perhaps the most notable being the cover for their 2007 self-titled album, the artwork for which was extremely minimal – it features only an image of a black winged skull upon a plain white background, or their second album, 2003’s ‘Waking The Fallen’ which is effectively the same but with the colours inverted. This image became almost iconic for the band, and ended up becoming their associated logo. This could again link back to the theory of audience gratification, in that fans who were aware of their previous albums, or who have seen this logo before would be able to immediately make the connection and recognise the artwork as associated with the band. To others viewing the artwork that perhaps had not been previously aware of the logo, it may simply come across as an intimidating demon-like creature, in parallel to the name of the album.

Furthermore, the fact that this version of the logo had been evolved, given more of a shape and physical embodiment than previously and has become more of a character within itself, could be representative of the evolution of the band with this album – both with their sound and as a group. Additionally, I think that this character is supposed to be made almost in likeness to The Rev, which is further supported by the almost angelic reading of this image – whilst on the surface it may merely appear to be a daunting figure, in contrast it could be seen as a form of angel, with the smoke and the low-angle lighting almost making it looks as if it is rising from the grave, whilst the cross atop the gravestone appears to be cracking. The theme of religion is a common convention of this sort of genre, and is usually used in an almost menacing or taunting way to connote imagery of evil and darkness for example.

The mise-en-scene of this cover plays on the conventional horror movie interlink with this genre, along with the album title. For example, the girl is lying on what seems to be a bed of bones, and is surrounded by a mass of branches covered in dead and shrivelled leaves – these all connote a typical horror movie creepiness, making the image almost unsettling or unnerving to the audience. The girl is in what appears to be a graveyard, under the open night sky, and a full moon can be seen in the upper left-hand corner, emphasising the horror stereotypes and thus the sinister feeling. Additionally, the remote location of the graveyard give the impression of isolation and loneliness – perhaps also reflective of the band’s state as well as reinforcing this idea. The cover sticks to convention by being created in an illustrated style – this is an approach found frequently within the metal genre, where the focus is often more upon the music, creating influence for the artwork as opposed to images of the band themselves, in the same self-promoting way as the pop genre may tend to, for example.

In fitting with the artwork style, along with generic conventions, a basic dark colour scheme is used, the most noteworthy being varying shades of blue/grey, along with the pink of the young girls costume which contrasts with its darker surroundings. The dark palette of colours again elevates the ominous feel, as well as perhaps drawing a correspondence to the music contained upon this album – when juxtaposed with the covers of it’s predecessors, which tend to make use of a much more vibrant colour scheme, it becomes clear that the theme of darkness is a much more prominent feature with this cover, perhaps subtly implying that this is their darkest work to date.

The text on this album cover is kept fairly limited and simplistic. The name of the band is emblazoned centrally across the upper half of the cover. In comparison to the rest of the artwork, it is fairly small which perhaps suggests that it is not the main focus of the cover. The name is entirely in capitals, written in a printed style which gives it a sharp and somewhat harsh appearance – fairly typical of this sort of genre and possibly synonymous with this type of sound. The text is white, contrastingly brazenly from the darker shades of the background therefore capturing the audiences attention and allowing for ease of reading.

The name of the album is positioned directly beneath, written in a similar style. It is coloured bright red, which could again link to the conventional horror theme due to the more negative connotations of the colour – such as blood and anger for example. Such predetermined associations in the minds of the audience serve to emphasise and strengthen the force behind the word ‘Nightmare’, giving it an increased effect than the basics of the word alone may have done.

The only other text on the album cover is the Parental Advisory sticker, displayed prominently in the bottom right-hand corner. The fact that it is presented so clearly, almost accentuated by its isolation could possibly imply that the band have nothing to hide, and are not holding back with this record.