Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold

Nightmare, Avenged Sevenfold's fifth album, came out on Warner Bros. on July 23, 2010, and it was made in the shadow of a death. Founding drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan died in December 2009, before the band could record it. He had already written parts for it, and his vocal takes stayed on the record as a tribute, while Dream Theater's Mike Portnoy stepped behind the kit to finish the job.

Mike Elizondo produced, Andy Wallace mixed it in New York and Ted Jensen mastered it, and M. Shadows, guitarists Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance and bassist Johnny Christ played like men with someone to honour: dark, heavy, theatrical metal with grief running right through it. Even the cover pays respect, with a tombstone that picks out Rev's name. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, the band's first chart-topping debut, and went platinum in the US and Canada.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.