Don’t want to wait until August 27 to hear Avenged Sevenfold’s new album Hail To The King? Well, you don’t have to.  That’s because the entire album can be streamed over at iTunes, one week prior to its official release.

Upon going live on iTunes late last night, singer M. Shadows offered the following comment:

“We have been waiting to show you all our brand new album Hail To The King for far too long. It took us nine months of writing, recording and preparation so that we could put out an album we are all proud of from start to finish. Well I’m excited to announce that the wait is over. We have teamed up with our friends at iTunes to start streaming the full album right now until it’s released on August 27. The stream is high quality and you can listen to the whole album as many times as you’d like. So plug in your best set of headphones and turn it up to 10. Head over there now to listen and pre order. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. See you all on the road!”

So what do we think of the album? Well, we’re still letting it sink in, but it’s immediately clear that A7X has further distanced themselves from their metalcore roots and closer to replicating their old-school metal idols. In other words, if you aren’t a fan of anything they released post-Waking The Fallen, then this album likely won’t do it for you. However, if you’re a die-hard A7X fan or an older fan who loves Metallica’s Black Album, then Hail To The King is for you.

Stream Hail To The King and judge for yourself over at iTunes.