Album Review

Bullet For My Valentine - Temper TemperBullet For My Valentine – Temper Temper

Now here’s a band that has been with me for many years now, I’ve always been very vocal in regards to my opinions on each album they’ve put out; starting with their self titled mini album which I personally think is some of the best material the band has ever produced, “Poison” drastically shot them up the ladder to success and rightly so as it was a truly impressive selection of music, “Scream Aim Fire” was on the rough end of the press firing line receiving many bad reviews but I still stood by it as there were some impressive moments and the rest was decent, “Fever” their most recent output was their return to strong form as it was aggressive yet melodic, something the band thrives with. We could have happily left that story to conclude right there and it would have been a rollercoaster career with a strong finish, since the world didn’t end inevitably they’re back with a new record and a confident attitude or arrogant delusion, let’s find out wish.

But before we get into the bulk, prior to its release day we had the release of 2 singles. One of which was “Riot” and this needless to say was a strong shock to the system; for a start Bullet For My Valentine have normally had meaningful lyrics that just flow with the music and usually stay away from clichés or really simplistic cringe worthy lines but this is just completely opposite and it’s awful; on the note of being opposite it was hardly aggressive either, found the whole thing quite poorly put together and just plain dull. The other single, the first single they released from the album “Temper Temper” the purpose of which is to create hype and aggressively push excitement onto the fans; in all fairness this wasn’t as bad as “Riot” but it was still miles away from what they’ve built a career out of in their back catalogue.

I need to stress how forced and cringe worthy some of these lyrics are, “Breaking Point” the opening song of the album had me physically shivering and rubbing my face because of how shockingly bad they were and “Truth Hurts” is like some kind of Geordie Shore bullshit to do with drink and drugs. Arguably the bands biggest anthem was “Tears Don’t Fall”, so to name a song “Tears Don’t Fall Pt. 2” is definitely some form of attention stunt to sell more copies, from what I can gather from listening it is effectively the same song with different lyrics; the riff is painfully similar, the opening line “Let’s Go Again” just being the same with 1 word added on the end. The only good thing is that right here is a journalists comparative dream, comparing the lyrics with the previous they aren’t a touch on the original and the whole structure isn’t even anything like the band’s made a career out of, trust me just listen to them both back to back.

I don’t know what it is that’s took the very edge of what made the band who they were away, is it the fact Matt has a new metal project in Axewound and that’s where he focuses his heavy side? Or is it the fact he’s cut his hair? Are they bored of heavy music? I couldn’t tell you what it is but I’ve seen moves like this before from bands like Lost Prophets with the transition they underwent between “The Fake Sound of Progress” and “Liberation Transmission” or what My Chemical Romance’s “Danger Days” was all about, but they still managed to find a degree of success with their crossovers, BFMV I don’t think have the same power with whatever this is.

2/5

Review by James Webb

 Band Members

Matthew Tuck
Michael Page
Michael Thomas
Jason James
 Track Listing
1. Breaking Point
2. Truth Hurts
3. Temper Temper
4. P.O.W.
5. Dirty Little Secret
6. Leech
7. Dead To The World
8. Riot
9. Saints & Sinners
10. Tears Don’t Fall, Pt. 2
11. Livin’ Life (On the Edge of a Knife)
12. Not Invincible
 Band Related Links
Bullet For My Valentine Facebook
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?