Avenged Sevenfold Reveal Release Date for Newest Album

We all assumed that Avenged Sevenfold would be releasing a brand new album this year and now it's official. Their latest piece of work, which will be titled Hail to the King, will arrive in stores on August 27. The album is being produced by Mike Elizondo, the same man behind 2010's Nightmare, which earned the group its first Number One record on the Billboard 200 album chart.

It is also the first album without drummer and primary song writer James "The Rev" Sullivan, who passed away in December 2009. Frontman M.Shadows told Pulse of Radio, "We had a decision to make on this one. The decision was, okay, do we just make a record that everyone expects us to make, or do we just move forward and make another, different record that we feel more comfortable with, and we chose the latter. So right now we're looking forward to doing something new and exciting and fresh, and hopefully people give it a shot and like it."

Shadows also told Metal Hammer last year that the album will not sound like "Carry On," a song the band recorded for the video game "Call Of Duty: Black Ops II." According to Shadows, "The new album has a lot more of a [BLACK] SABBATH / [LED] ZEPPELIN feel to it than 'Carry On'. There's definitely more SABBATH in what we're writing, and we're proud of 'Carry On', but this album is going to be on a whole new level."

And while album sales may be an important factor for any band, Zacky Vengeance claims that A7X has a different way to measure success saying, "We're definitely interested and would like to know that the record's selling and radio stations are playing it and stuff. But our best indicator of how it's really doing and stuff is doing the meet-and-greets and seeing kids in the audience and just going out there and living it. Because seeing stuff on paper and then going and actually playing for your fans and seeing the shows sell out and stuff -- that's what really lets you know that these people are for real."

Avenged Sevenfold will kick off the album release with a free show at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on August 26th. The band has also lined up several festival dates this summer, starting with Rock USA on July 17th in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.