Almost Easy

The most emotionally transparent track in this band's catalog from this era, and the production knows it — everything sits slightly closer to the surface than on heavier Avenged Sevenfold material, the drums less thunderous, the guitars more melodic than abrasive. The riff that opens the song has an almost rock radio quality to it, immediately memorable, built for repetition, and the verse that follows it strips further down before the chorus opens into full ensemble force. Shadows' vocal performance reaches toward actual vulnerability here rather than performed aggression, his voice carrying something like confession in the delivery. The lyric concerns the difficulty of internal coherence — the exhaustion of feeling divided against oneself, the want of relief that keeps not arriving — without losing enough opacity to avoid being purely literal. The bridge section contains what is essentially a pop-metal hook of real craft, the kind that plays back involuntarily hours after hearing it. The guitar solo is melodic and structural rather than decorative, advancing the song's emotional arc rather than interrupting it. This is the record you put on when something has been worn thin inside you and you need the feeling recognized before you can move past it.