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During production the band had taken great freedom in exploring different genres and styles of rock and heavy metal music. A noticeable difference between Avenged Sevenfold and City of Evil is that some of the songs take a slower pace and tempo to suit a more hard rock approach, a decision that was met with mixed responses within the fan base.
"Critical Acclaim" is the opening track on the album and features a gothic style organ in the intro. During the band's tour this song was a very frequent opener. "Almost Easy" is the second song on the album and features a thrash metal style reminiscent of City of Evil. The song also contains a keyboard overdub played by Greg Kusten. Other songs on the album contained overdubs for extra detail such as "Unbound (The Wild Ride)", which featured a background choir (this song has never been performed live), String quartet orchestras are featured in "Afterlife" and "Brompton Cocktail", both of which were written by The Rev. "Scream" also contained overdubs in its bass line for extra detail. "Lost" made use of Auto-Tuned vocals and the song "Dear God" is a country rock ballad.
The most experimental song on the album is "A Little Piece of Heaven", which was originally written by The Rev while he took a break from the recording sessions. It is a hard rock song but is influenced by Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass and stringed instruments to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. The animated video of the song tells the story of a man and woman, both unnamed; the man proposes to the woman, who declines and angers the man in doing so. The man kills her and has sex with her. Eventually, the woman comes back to life and the man realizes his mistake and the woman kills him before forgiving him. Once they are both dead, the man and woman invade a wedding and get married. It is one of the band's darker and more humorous songs lyrically and is a fan favorite. Although it has never been released as a single, the band released an unofficial animated video of the song, which plays during live performances. The band closed their concerts with the song since the release of Avenged Sevenfold through 2009.

[edit] Post-release reception

[hide] Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
The A.V. Club	(B) [3]
Blender	[4]
Entertainment Weekly	(B) [5]
IGN	(7.9/10) [6]
Kerrang!
Lords of Metal.com	(78/100) [7]
Metal Hammer	(8/10)
NME	(8/10) [8]
Sputnik Music	[9]

Critical reaction to Avenged Sevenfold was generally mixed. Metacritic accumulated an average score of 56 out of 100 based on thirteen reviews on the website.^[10] It placed number 4 on the charts at its release. It also received mixed reactions from the Avenged Sevenfold fan-base due to the almost complete alteration of their musical style. Being something of an experimental album, some fans praised the new sound as it did contain key components of their previous successes with some new elements. However, some fans saw it in a negative light as it differed greatly from the sound of their previous albums and since each song differed greatly in sound and style the album lacked an overall sense of direction. The loss of the sound from City of Evil also generated some lukewarm responses.
Jason Lymangrover of Allmusic had given the album a rating of three stars out of five and wrote "While their willingness to experiment is admirable, despite the fact that they've gone overboard with their overdubs, the overabundance of studio polish leaves one to wonder if it's not because the songs just aren't as strong this time around".^[11] A more positive review came from Andrew Earles of A.V. Club who commented "The catchy Stone Temple Pilots vibe of 'Scream' is enough to put the band back on the charts, but that could happen with more than half of this album…And it probably will". He graded the album a (B).^[12] A much more hostile review came from Dave de Sylvia of Sputnik Music summarising "Avenged Sevenfold resemble a poor man's Hardcore Superstar" and rated the album one out of five.^[13]
Despite the mixed reaction the album won the Kerrang! Awards Best Album-award in 2008.
The USC Trojans Marching Band performed the song "Almost Easy" at the Rose Bowl halftime show on January 1, 2009.^[14]