The Stage

The Stage is the seventh studio album by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, released on October 28, 2016, through Capitol Records. It was the first Avenged Sevenfold album in 11 years to not be released through Warner Bros. Records, due to a legal dispute between them and the band. It was also the band's first to feature drummer Brooks Wackerman, who joined the band in November 2015 but was not revealed as Arin Ilejay's official replacement until Ilejay's departure in 2015, because the band wanted to "make sure that it was a correct fit". Written and recorded throughout 2016, The Stage was musically different for the band, marking a progressive metal sound. It is Avenged Sevenfold's first concept album, with its main theme being based on artificial intelligence and self-destruction of society. It is the band's longest studio album at 73 minutes and 35 seconds. In addition to being their longest album, The Stage features their longest song to date, "Exist", with a run-time of 15 minutes and 41 seconds. Upon release, the album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It received positive reviews from critics. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sta...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)