We are going deep through to one of my favorite Avenged Sevenfold songs, and actually the frontman of the band from California, M Shadows said in few interviews that is his favorite song from A7X. We are talking about Buried Alive. Track number 4 of their album nightmare.
There are people who think that the title and lyrics of this track are making reference to Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan. But in fact, that is not true. The whole song was written before he passed away. There is a demo of it on YouTube where the main lyrics are sung by The Rev himself. Here it is if you guys want to check it out.
From my point of view, in the song, there are two interpreters: Death and the person that is about to die.
Death wants the person to realize what he has done:
“Take the time just to listen
When the voices screaming are much too loud
Take a look in the distance
Try and see it all
Chances are that you might find
That we share a common discomfort now”
Why the person is about to die? Person:
“Death calls my name”
It looks like the person knows that death is coming, but he doesn’t want to die, he wants to see the sun again. Person:
“Hey, I can’t live in here for another day
Darkness has kept the light concealed”
But death knows is a mather of time. Death:
“Hold onto faith as I dig another grave
Meanwhile the mice endure the wheel
Real as ever”
Did he make something wrong? It looks like. Death:
“What’s it feel like? Took the wrong route”
In the end, the battle is won by the obvious contender… Death:
“This is now your life
Die buried alive”
Avenged was always a band that agreed to have extra musicians on their recordings. This strings arrangements made by Stevie Blacke creates a very creepy and cool atmosphere that goes with the song itself. If you don´t pay attention to them you might not notice that they are there, but they change the shape of the song indeed.
This can be found in almost every avenged song, true, but I just wanted to point this thing out. And it’s the hoarse voice that Mat has.
One thing that I like about Synister Gates playing style is that he doesn’t necessarily create one big and long solo for a song and that’s it. He plays little solos that are through the song. On most occasions, this approach makes the song sound better in my opinion. And it’s not as predictive, I mean, it’s not like, OK, here comes the solo, ok, the solo is finished, I won’t hear another one until the next song.
Talking about the other guitarist, Zacky, how cool he sounds on the back, with his fat riffs. Syn can solo all he wants, but he is standing above what Zacky is playing. Right?
What nobody knew, was that there is a special and mysterious collaboration on this song. During this transition, James Hetfield steps in for this fat guitar riff. (yeah, this is a joke. It’s obvious that we’re hearing a Schecter guitar and not an ESP… duh!)