It's been more than a year since Avenged Sevenfold dropped their last new song, "Mad Hatter," and much longer since they offered up their last album, 2016's The Stage. To tide over fans waiting patiently for the announcement of the band's next LP, A7X have unearthed a previously unreleased cut from the sessions for 2013's Hail to the King, the slow-building epic "Set Me Free."
Old for A7X but new to fans, the track is a six-and-a-half-minute ride that follows a fairly traditional power ballad structure and centers around a repeating chorus that commands "Set me free tonight" while some pretty wicked harmonized guitar licks take front and center.
Hail to the King was the only album to feature drummer Arin Illejay following the death of beloved drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and before Brooks Wackerman left punk icons Bad Religion to join the crew for the long haul. As the band announced recently on Instagram, the album's title track was also named the No. 1 rock song of the decade by Amazon music.
As pointed out by one Reddit user, the name of the new song was shown in the 2015 video below that outlined the making of Hail to the King. A screen shot reveals its placement in the original track listing, until apparent edits left it on the cutting room floor.
While no official confirmation has been made by the band yet, the song is rumored to appear on an updated, digital version of their live release Diamonds in the Rough that will be available in February.
