Bands Like Avenged Sevenfold

If you love Avenged Sevenfold and need something new in the rotation, start here. The twelve bands below share the DNA that makes A7X work: oversized melodic hooks, twin-guitar theatrics, and a taste for drama that swings from metalcore to classic metal without losing the plot. Some sound like A7X right now. Others are the heroes A7X were built from. All of them are worth your next hour.

First, a quick map of what you are actually chasing, because "bands like A7X" means different things depending on which A7X you fell for. Avenged Sevenfold started in Huntington Beach, California in 1999 as a metalcore band, screaming and breakneck on Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and Waking the Fallen. Then came the pivot. City of Evil in 2005 dropped the screams for soaring clean vocals, harmonized leads from Synyster Gates, and six-minute songs built like power ballads with teeth. The self-titled record pushed the theatrics further, right up to the demented show tune "A Little Piece of Heaven." After founding drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan died in 2009, the band regrouped with Dream Theater's Mike Portnoy and delivered Nightmare, their first number one on the Billboard 200. Hail to the King in 2013 leaned openly on classic metal. The Stage went full progressive in 2016, and 2023's Life Is But a Dream... went somewhere stranger still.

That restless range is the whole point. No single band covers all of it, so this list splits into two camps: the modern acts that scratch the same itch today, and the classic heroes whose fingerprints are all over A7X's sound. Work out which era you love most and the right recommendation is easy to find.

The modern bands that scratch the same itch

Bad Omens

Start with Bad Omens if you want the closest living relative to peak-era A7X. Formed in Richmond, Virginia in 2015, the band broke wide with 2022's The Death of Peace of Mind, a record that bolts an R&B falsetto and cold electronics onto churning melodic metalcore. Frontman Noah Sebastian has the same trick M. Shadows does, flipping from a clean, radio-sized hook to something guttural without it ever feeling like a gimmick. The songs are built for maximum impact, with cinematic quiet passages that detonate into heavy drops, the same push and pull A7X mastered on Nightmare. The scope is the match here, not a lineage claim. Entry point: "Just Pretend," then "Like a Villain" for the heavier side.

Sleep Token

Sleep Token is where you go for the Life Is But a Dream... side of A7X, the part that refuses to pick a genre. The anonymous, masked British collective formed in London in 2016 around a frontman called Vessel, and their songs lurch from piano balladry to crushing breakdowns to outright funk inside a single track. If what hooks you about A7X is their willingness to gamble on a weird idea and commit to it fully, this is the band taking that gamble furthest right now. The viral single "The Summoning" is the obvious door in, because it does the piano-to-breakdown-to-groove trick in one song and shows you the whole band at once.

Five Finger Death Punch

Five Finger Death Punch occupy the same arena-metal real estate as A7X, trading art-rock ambition for sheer anthemic weight. The riffs hit like a groove-metal battering ram, the choruses are built for ten thousand people shouting along, and the ballads go unapologetically big. If the parts of A7X you love are the fist-in-the-air moments, the "Hail to the King" chants and the soaring "So Far Away" choruses, FFDP deliver those by the truckload and little else gets in the way. Try "Wrong Side of Heaven" for the ballad side, then "Under and Over It" when you want the groove.

Disturbed

Disturbed share A7X's best weapon, a frontman whose voice is the hook. David Draiman's commanding, almost operatic delivery does for Disturbed what M. Shadows does for A7X, carrying songs that are heavy but radio-shaped and instantly memorable. This is modern American metal with clean production and real melody, closer to the Nightmare end of A7X than the metalcore beginnings. The rhythms are built on simple, punishing grooves that leave room for the vocal to dominate. "Stricken" is the entry track, with "Indestructible" close behind for the heavier pull.

Slipknot

Slipknot are heavier and uglier than A7X, but the overlap is real and worth chasing. Both bands fold genuine melody into brutality, and both turned the live show into theater, with the masks and the staging doing as much work as the songs. If the aggression of early A7X is what pulls you in, Slipknot take that instinct to its extreme while still writing choruses you can actually sing back. Start with "Duality," which balances the chaos and the hook in one perfect song, then "Psychosocial" for the groove that bridges the gap to A7X's heavier material.

Deftones

Deftones answer a different question: what if A7X cared more about atmosphere than fireworks. This is alternative metal built on dynamics, the quiet-loud swing, textures that shimmer before they crush. Chino Moreno's voice floats and howls where M. Shadows belts, and the guitars trade precision shredding for walls of sound. For the A7X fan who gravitates to mood over muscle, who loves the eerie stretches more than the solos, Deftones are the richest rabbit hole on this list. "Change (In the House of Flies)" is the classic way in, and "My Own Summer (Shove It)" shows the heavier end.

Tool

Tool are the band to reach for after The Stage. A7X's progressive turn, with its odd time signatures and long-form song structures, owes a clear debt to the template Tool built over decades. These are songs that unfold rather than hit, rewarding repeat listens and patience over instant gratification. The drumming alone is a masterclass that any A7X fan who geeks out over Portnoy or The Rev will appreciate. If the seven-minute title track of The Stage is your favorite A7X moment, "Schism" is where you go next, then "Lateralus" when you have a spare ten minutes.

My Chemical Romance

My Chemical Romance share A7X's theatrical streak more than their heaviness. The 2006 concept record The Black Parade is pure rock opera, grand and narrative and unafraid of a dramatic swing, the same impulse that produced "A Little Piece of Heaven." A7X and MCR came up in the same mid-2000s crossover moment, played the same festivals, and pulled from the same love of spectacle over restraint. "Welcome to the Black Parade" tells you in five minutes whether this one is for you, and "Famous Last Words" seals it.

The heroes A7X were built from

A7X never hid their influences. By Hail to the King in 2013 they were openly channeling the bands they grew up on, and critics noted the fingerprints all over the record, from individual riffs to whole song structures. Some reviewers cheered the homage and others accused the band of copying their heroes outright. Either way, if you want to hear where the sound came from, go to the source.

Metallica

Metallica are the backbone of A7X's classic-metal era. Reviewers pointed out that Hail to the King's "This Means War" rides a riff and melody close to Metallica's "Sad But True," and the kinship runs deeper than one song. The galloping tempos, the clean-then-heavy builds, the sense of metal as something monumental rather than merely loud, all of it traces back here. Start at "Master of Puppets" and you are standing at the root of half of modern metal, A7X very much included, then let "Sad But True" show you the lineage directly.

Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses are in A7X's bloodstream through the guitars. The harmonized, duelling leads that Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance built their reputation on trace straight back to Slash's playing, and critics heard Use Your Illusion-era GN'R all over A7X's "Doing Time." This is swaggering, bluesy hard rock with a dangerous edge, the sound of a band that could write a stadium ballad and a sleaze anthem on the same record. "Welcome to the Jungle" is the entry, and "November Rain" shows the epic side that A7X clearly studied.

AC/DC

AC/DC taught A7X the value of a riff that needs no decoration. The stomping, stripped-back groove that anchors the Hail to the King title track is pure AC/DC worship, riff-first hard rock that lives or dies on swagger and repetition rather than complexity. If A7X's bigger, simpler songs are the ones stuck in your head, "Back in Black" is the blueprint and "Thunderstruck" is the encore. Few bands have ever done more with less, and A7X took that lesson to heart.

Queen

Queen are the reason A7X can get away with their most ambitious theatrics. The layered vocal harmonies and genre-hopping drama of "A Little Piece of Heaven," one of A7X's most unhinged and beloved songs, owe everything to the Queen playbook of treating a rock song like a stage production. For the fan who loves it when A7X turn a metal track into a Broadway number, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is where that permission was first granted, and "Don't Stop Me Now" shows the sheer joy underneath it.

How to use this list

The fastest way to find your next favorite band is to figure out which Avenged Sevenfold you love most. If it is the heavy, hook-driven modern metal of Nightmare, lean toward Five Finger Death Punch and Disturbed. If it is the experimental sprawl of The Stage and Life Is But a Dream..., go to Tool and Sleep Token. If it is the theatrical drama of the self-titled record, My Chemical Romance and Queen will feel like home. If it is the raw aggression of the early metalcore records, Slipknot and the heavier Bad Omens tracks are your lane. And if it is the open-hearted classic metal of Hail to the King, the heroes section is your whole map.

Every band here lives in the same neighborhood as A7X's core genres, alternative metal, heavy metal, and hard rock, so you can keep pulling threads from any of those pages and build a queue that runs for days. A7X's whole career is a reminder that the best bands refuse to sit still. The twelve above share that restlessness, which is exactly why they earn a place on this list.

FAQ

What genre is Avenged Sevenfold? A7X started as metalcore, then moved through classic heavy metal, hard rock, progressive metal, and outright experimentation. The band sits most comfortably under alternative metal, with heavy metal and hard rock close behind.

Which band sounds most like Avenged Sevenfold today? Bad Omens come closest to peak-era A7X, pairing huge clean hooks with heavy, modern production. Five Finger Death Punch match the arena-metal scale, and Sleep Token match the genre-blurring ambition of A7X's later records.

Are Avenged Sevenfold considered metalcore? Only at the start. Their first two albums are metalcore, but from City of Evil onward the band dropped the screams and shifted toward melodic heavy metal, and they have kept evolving ever since.

Who influenced Avenged Sevenfold? The band grew up on classic metal and hard rock, and by Hail to the King they were openly paying tribute to Metallica, Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, and other heroes. Queen's theatrical streak also runs through their most ambitious songs.