It wasn’t the most relaxing night’s sleep. Late one evening after a hard day’s work in the studio, M. Shadows was laying down ready to go to bed when he put on Avenged Sevenfold’s new record. It had just been freshly mixed by Andy Wallace, and the frontman was keen to hear how the songs that comprise Life Is But A Dream… would transition into one another in their final form – specifically the trio of G, (O)rdinary and (D)eath. While the album title may suggest a semblance of serenity, the experience didn’t gently send Shadows into a slumber. On the contrary, it hit him so hard that his heart began to pound. “It was shocking!” he recalls, rapidly tapping his palm over his chest, demonstrating this most visceral of reactions to his own band’s music. “I felt, for th...