On Avenged Sevenfold's third album "City of Evil", the band chose to outright abandon the metalcore genre, creating a sound consistent with hard rock and heavy metal. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album experiments with an even wider array of musical genres than that from "City of Evil", most notably in "Dear God", which shows a country style and "A Little Piece of Heaven", which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar. "Nightmare" contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called "Fiction", progressive metal-oriented track "Save Me" and a heavy metal sound with extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation on "God Hates Us". The band's sixth studio album "Hail to the King" shows more of a classic metal sound and a riff-oriented approach. On their newest album "The Stage", the band explores further into progressive metal, blending it with elements of thrash metal. In the past, Avenged Sevenfold has also been described as screamo and pop punk metal.