Waking the Fallen
2003 studio album by Avenged Sevenfold

Waking the Fallen is the second studio album by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, released on August 26, 2003, through Hopeless Records. It is the band's first full-length album with new lead guitarist Synyster Gates and bassist Johnny Christ.
The album was certified gold on July 15, 2009, even though it only sold 3,000 copies on its first week of release. As of August 2014, the album has sold over 693,000 copies in the United States. As of March 17, 2021, the album has been certified Platinum in the United States and Gold in both Canada and the United Kingdom. The song "Eternal Rest" appears on Kerrang!'s "666 Songs You Must Own" and was featured on the soundtrack to the movie Saw IV (2007).
Background and recording
On January 18, 2002, Avenged Sevenfold left Good Life Recordings and signed with Hopeless Records. They re-released their debut album on March 19 and also appeared on the Hopelessly Devoted to You Vol. 4 sampler in April. The band started to receive recognition, performing with bands such as Mushroomhead and Shadows Fall.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Waking the Fallen” is 2003 studio album by Avenged Sevenfold. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Waking, Fallen and studio, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2003 studio album by Avenged Sevenfold” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1753083. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2003, 2009, 2014 and 2021.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Waking the Fallen”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Waking the Fallen primary sources, Waking the Fallen archive and Waking research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Waking the Fallen”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Waking the Fallen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.