ALBUM REVIEW: Bullet For My Valentine – Bullet For My Valentine
A self-titled album is often a moment when an artist wants to put across to their fans that this is the record that sums up their entire career up until this point while also looking forward to the future. Having started strong with The Poison in 2004 and been on general upward trajectory throughout the 00s and the early 2010s, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE seemingly burnt their own career to the ground with the release of the dreadful Temper Temper in 2012, and have been slowly dragging themselves back into a position of notoriety ever since. 2015’s Venom was a return of sorts to their melodic metal roots, whilst 2018’s Gravity threw the cat amongst the pop metal pigeons by being a slickly produced record full of radio ready tunes that resulted in the Welsh quartet playing some of their biggest UK shows, including a headline show at Alexandra Palace.
Fast forward to 2021, and the boys from Bridgend are making all the noises that this is the record that will define them and carry them into a ‘Bullet 2.0‘ trajectory. Cynics among the metal community will have heard this speech before, especially when it comes to self-titled albums and this need by bands to reinvent themselves by attempting to distil themselves into a record that ends up being ultimately rather forgettable.
Which brings us to BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE‘s self titled seventh record, an album which sadly joins the ranks of rather forgettable self-titled records. Much noise has been made before BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE‘s release about it being the band’s heaviest album yet. For once, the hyperbole around this matter is actually true – there is a marked increase in the crunch and attack on this record. It’s a significant improvement on Gravity, which had all the energy of a soporific post dinner sit down. The tone of the guitars is at the front of the mix and it feels like you are listening to a band playing together, rather than four individuals tracking their parts on different days.
The opening number Parasite references past singles from the band, before letting rip with a real blast from the drums and a rip roaring ‘Here We Go‘ from Matt Tuck. When Tuck is letting the screams fly, he sounds invigorated and passionate, but his melodic singing really does seem to suffer from some kind of charisma bypass. Knives continues on the up-tempo theme, with a great crunching chorus riff that will get your head banging, and features a great beatdown with a shrieking lead line in the guitar. Can’t Escape The Waves‘ opening riff rockets along, and this track has a satisfying chorus melody that is one of the strongest on the record, though the water based lyrical imagery is a tired cliché.
Unfortunately, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE lose their nerve after the opening two songs and go back to familiar territory that they have covered on previous albums. The issue that permeates through the rest of the record is that at its best it’s simply rather forgettable, and at its worst it’s clunky. Bastards is meant to be a big rabble rousing protest song with its gang vocals and stomping chorus, but just falls flat as it simply does not convey any emotion other than mild annoyance. Rainbow Veins comes across as a song that clearly is rooted in the struggles of mental health, but is riddled with a clunky lyrical narrative that depersonalises the issue at hand. Shatter has the band evoking MACHINE HEAD, but with far less aggression. A positive to end on is that the record does not end with a soppy ballad, but with a final muted roar in the form of Death By A Thousand Cuts – a track which would benefit from being placed much earlier in the running order.
This record is nothing special, but it could lead to some interesting places. Somebody needs to buy Matt Tuck a thesaurus to improve his clichéd lyric writing, but at no point will you find yourself laughing at anything, you just won’t remember any of it. Their next record could really benefit from trimming down on the length of the songs, and not being afraid to continue down this path of aggression that has been missing with this band for a while. Perhaps the reason for self-titling this record will be this was the moment that BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE decided to get their act together and take a brave step forward, rather than just present their audience with another record of rather forgettable melodic metal.
Rating: 6/10
Bullet For My Valentine is set for release on November 5th via Spinefarm Records/Search & Destroy.
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