Vocal style

In the band's debut album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, M. Shadows' vocals had a heavy metalcore influence and consisted mostly of screamed vocals. This style gradually decreased in later albums into more conventional clean singing and had been almost completely abandoned by the release of City of Evil, the band's major label debut. After the release of City of Evil a rumor had developed stating that the reason why M. Shadows dropped the screaming was either due to blowing a blood vessel or ripping a vocal cord in the back of his throat. However, this is not true. Despite having admitted minor throat surgery this was not a cause for the change and in an interview on All Excess, manager Larry Jacobson states that Shadows had decided two years before the making of City of Evil that it would be an all singing album. He had made it clear to their producer, Andrew Murdock, that the album they were working on at the time Waking the Fallen would be half singing and half screaming, and that the next would be all singing. In the past Shadows would sing on all parts of the songs during live performances, supporting the theory that he was no longer able to scream or growl. Perhaps becoming fed up with those claims, Shadows has resumed screaming again during live shows, this can be seen in the band's new live DVD "Live in the LBC & Diamonds in the Rough" In almost all of the songs in the DVD, he does a 5 to 7 second long scream, and does some screaming vocals for Second Heartbeat and Unholy Confessions. In 2009, Shadows continued screaming when Avenged Sevenfold had performed songs from Waking the Fallen, such as Eternal Rest and Chapter Four, at the "Rock on the Range" and "Sonisphere" live shows. Some of Shadows' biggest musical influences are Metallica,