// Avenged Sevenfold Announce New Album//

Avenged Sevenfold have announced that their fifth album, Nightmare, will be released July 27 on Warner Bros. The disc’s first single, also titled “Nightmare,” will be released tomorrow on radio and online. You can preview the song here on the band’s website.

Nightmare was produced by Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Eminem), mixed by Andy Wallace and is the group’s first album since the passing of drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan last December. Drumming duties for the record, and the band’s upcoming tour, have been taken over by Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy, who was Sullivan’s favorite drummer, and has been added to the line-up in tribute.

The band posted a statement in February about the addition of Portnoy. “We asked Jimmy’s all time favorite drummer Mike Portnoy to record on behalf of him. Mike said it would be an honor and without question that’s what Jim would have wanted. It’s comforting to us that someone like Mike, who is undoubtedly revered as one of the best drummers in the world, held such respect and adoration for the Rev’s abilities.”

As we previously told you, the band will be co-headlining the first annual Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival with Disturbed this summer. We’re pretty sure dudes with complicated septum piercings are psyched.