Bullet For My Valentine 2.0 is here folks, and they hit harder than a battering ram!
Now that we have that out of the way, we can talk about their newest self-titled record, following 2020’s divisive-but-not-as-lackluster-as-TemperTemper record Gravity. This record, out of the band’s own admission is a reinvention of their sound, so the self-titled title seems appropriate. Let’s get right to it then:
The Great:
Bullet For My Valentine is HEAVY! There is no getting around it. As a tribute to their phoenix-like rise from the ashes, album opener and single “Parasite” opens with a low-fi garbled compilation of snippets of bangers from their catalog like “Hand of Blood”, “Your Betrayal”, “No Way Out”, the song that put them on the map: “Tears Don’t Fall” and others, leading up to their more recent work, before kicking us in the shins with a heavier riff than they’ve put out since Venom. This time around, there are tremolo-picked riffs, and an outro riff beginning with “I HOPE YOU CHOKE”, a guaranteed crowd-killer call out! The thrashy goodness continues with “Knives”, the other released single at the time of this review. The tribal drum build-up leading to the palm-muted breakdown is CirclePit For My Valentine at its finest!
An immediate detail that jumps to mind is that the tracks are longer than I remember Bullet tracks to be, and that is not necessarily a good thing. “My Reverie” begins with an ambient arrangement, which when accounting for the title would suggest we are getting a ballad, and we do, of sorts. “My Reverie” is a power ballad, not entirely unlike early works like “All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)” (from 2006’s trendsetter The Poison). Along with “Parasite”, “My Reverie” features a prominent and delicious solo, the likes of which we haven’t seen from BFMV in a while, and it raises the quality of the track! The half-timed drum time with guitar squeals during the outro really drives the point home that BFMV means business! “No Happily Ever After” has yet another chuggy breakdown leading into a blitzkrieg solo, and the name lies to us, more of this and we would live happily ever after!
“Can’t Escape The Waves” is a much higher tempo track, with a very Trivium-like main riff played over ambient notes. It’s on tracks like these that we see how well the bass is mixed, and how far the bassist is pushed forward in the songwriting process! A huge plus! “Rainbow Veins” starts off with another power-ballad first section, opting for grand chords and anthemic drums, with whisper-cleans, with some well-crafted double bass shuffles, and the first occurrence of crowd-chants. Just when you think you know what you’re going to get with “Rainbow Veins” we get hit with “TAKE ME OVER THE EDGE” which kicks off the nastiest breakdown on this record. After several… several listens to this lead-up/breakdown, I cannot help but yell out “THIS… IS… SEMPITERNAL!” (mimicking Bring Me The Horizon’s iconic breakdown). Hot damn, this breakdown would make even the lads in Sylosis stand up and take notice!
But BFMV isn’t done yet!
By this point, we should have learned our lesson and not fall for the ol’ bait-n-switch trick they’ve pulled on us three times so far, but fell into the “Shatter” trap yet again, this time after being lulled into a false sense of security with angelic synths. Eight snare hits, and we are dropkicked in the throat by what is the nastiest riff on the entire record. The opening riff lives up to the track name with a snare hit cracking like a whip. Very Sylosis, very tasty! Moving on, we can all agree that Sylosis wrote “Paralysed”, there can be no other explanation, and that is a huge compliment to both bands and the track! Album closer “Death By A Thousand Cuts” is a modern rendition to BFMV songwriting, with some As I Lay Dying and Lamb of God flavors with the driving riff.
Special shoutout to Michael “Padge” Paget for his guitar solos. They are blistering, apt, with just enough variety with modes, (like switching to Phyrigian Dominant on “Death By A Thousand Cuts”) to keep us interested. It’s a sheer pity that we are not treated to more solos because they elevate every track which features them. Drummer and newcomer Jason Bowld was a great choice, his drum arrangements are stellar, they match the new vibe BFMV is going for, and even throw in a couple of curveballs to keep us guessing! Bassist Jamie Mathias continues to bring his A-game with solid bass lines which are always front and center of the mix.
Speaking of, a huge reason why BFMV2.0 crushes as much as it does is the mix. The guitars are beefy, the drums cut through without sounding overly artificial, and the bass adds the additional “oomph”, the layers shine through, the solos are audible! This is the mix that we need on all future BFMV releases!
The Good:
Right off the bat, we must talk about Matthew Tuck’s vocals on this record. Because they are a mixed bag, albeit with more high than low points. He has a vocal style that has become iconic in the metalcore scene simply by how long BFMV has been a household name in these circles. Admittedly, his vocal performances have been declining over the last few records, opting to use more cleans and less grit on records like Temper Temper, and Gravity. Though Venom was a slight return to form, this new record is where he’s REALLY back! His propensity to get back to growls, yells, shouts, and barks all hit home in the best possible way. Every breakdown call-out finds its mark and sits perfectly with this new iteration.
Where it begins to falter is his cleans. Either his signature pitch has just worn out its welcome and audiences like me, that have matured with the band itself. In addition, many of his lyrical arrangements seem clumsy and come off as they were written without conjunction with the music. Furthermore, there are sections of tracks, where his vocals do not shift tone when the chords behind them shift from a major to a minor key. This is extremely nitpicky, but when you are a band at this level, and as integral to the scene, these elements take away from the entire package and feel a tad amateurish! A stark exception is his vocal timbre on the album closer “Death By A Thousand Cuts” where he channels BlessTheFall’s Beau Bokan with a much more “modern” metalcore approach and is a surprising, and welcome change!
The “Meh”:
“Bastards” falls flat. With a provocative title, expectations are high, but the track does not deliver. Written to be the “crowd anthem” of the record, the song was written specifically for Sirius XM, and it ends up being the weakest track on the record. With overly whiney vocals, and riffs that never fully land, and a weak chorus, “Bastards” is less BFMV and more Imagine Dragons, and was hugely disappointing. The solo tries its best to raise the quality of the track, and does do the trick to give it credit, yet cannot save this misstep of a song. Fortunately, there is only one track that attempts this approach and is my “must skip” of the record.
A few songwriting choices come off a wee bit clumsy too. While ambient notes work over other riffs, they are distractingly and (again) amateurishly awkward on “Can’t Escape the Waves”. A heavier producer’s hand was required to tighten up the cadence of that section. “Shatter” should be the crowd-decimator track, yet BFMV chooses to take their feet off the pedal after that excellent intro riff to give us a more diluted verse riff, that really stalls any accrued momentum. They do this often, and it’s a worrying trend across the entire metalcore genre. Lastly, whoever chose to put crowd-chant vocals over a solo needs to be fired immediately, what a weird songwriting choice that diminishes both elements!
And here is where I lose most of my readers: the riffs all over “Bullet For My Valentine”, while heavy, are very simplistic. Even knowing that BFMV has never been the band people looked at for overly-technical riffs, their reliance on chasing the heaviest possible passages, also leans into writing the most straightforward riffs. The notable exceptions are the solos which are superlative, but also prove that both guitarists are capable of writing more complex sections. Crowds have grown up, we have consumed more intelligently crafted metalcore with new content being pushed out by new names week after week, BFMV while heavier than they’ve ever been, are dangerously close to writing dad-thrash-core. Hopefully, their next release harnesses the same heaviness and focuses more on writing more intricate arrangements!
Put on your pink-black sleeves, paint your nails black, straighten your hair, put on your darkest eyeliner, your skinny jeans, and wallet chains, because Bullet For My Valentine are back! And this time they’re pissed off, in the best possible way. Even with minor qualms, this record definitely falls in the “Win” column! Well done Bullet, well done!