Album Reviews

Avenged Sevenfold

`Nightmare’

(Warner Bros.)

Making good metal music requires commitment. No one can say the current members of the metalcore band Avenged Sevenfold do not work hard at their craft. But their latest album rides the fence on exactly what type of metal it wants to be. Indecision has cost them.

``Nightmare’’ speeds through most of the songs, driven by the frenetic pace of drummer, Mike Portnoy. The band’s original drummer, Jimmy ``The Rev’’ Sullivan, died last year and this is the band’s first album without him.

Soaring guitar leads add to the mayhem, and the vocals from M. Shadows are technically perfect. But that is where they go astray. Much of ``Nightmare’’ is metal by design. It is mostly overproduced, as on the title track and ``God Hates Us.’’ It is a fine display of their abilities, but there is no theme to the delivery, and the approach to most songs feels random, like the guys could not decide what type of metal to play.

_ Associated Press

Menomena

`Mines’

(Barsuk)

The fourth album from Menomena, a trio from Portland, Ore., comes 3 1/2 years after their last disc, the brilliantly thorny ``Friend and Foe,’’ a minor breakthrough in the indie scene. The band has alluded to ``brutal disagreements’’ and ``failed marriages’’ in explaining the delay, and, fittingly, ``Mines’’ sounds toiled over. It is an identity crisis record.

It’s uneven, but exhilaratingly unpredictable. It hardly seems the same band, going from the aggressive fuzz and twang of ``TAOS’’ to, two tracks later, the sentimental ballad ``Dirty Cartoons.’’ After eight searching, varied songs, ``Mines’’ culminates with the operatic, dystopian ``Five Little Rooms’’ and its warmer, anthemic counterpart, ``Sleeping Beauty,’’ the light at the end of Menomena’s bipolar tunnel.

Los Lobos

`Tin Can Trust’

(Shout! Factory)

Los Lobos’ rootsy sound always explores rich terrain, and that’s the case on ``Tin Can Trust,’’ the group’s first collection of new original material in four years. The East Los Angeles quintet draws on their Hispanic heritage to play a cumbia and norteno. They look north to cover the Grateful Dead, summon the spirit of 1950s rock and reach back to the 16th century to sing about an Indian peasant’s vision of the Virgin Mary.

Ambitious? Yes. But they pull it off, transforming a potential hodgepodge into a seamless collection. Los Lobos has had the same lineup for 36 years, and yet there remains a vitality and freshness to the music that younger acts will never match.