Bullet for my Valentine - 'Temper Temper' Album Review

I remember when I first heard The Poison. I can’t have been much over ten or eleven years old and the album instantly connected with me. It was the subtle rebellion that an adolescent  youth, like I was at the time, needed to begin their own little private rebellion from society: their parents, their friends, their teachers. Though the original album was an accomplished piece with some great songs (‘Tears Don’t Fall’ and ‘The End’) you were never given the impression that the album was written for angry pubescents. The same can more-or-less be said for 2008’s Scream Aim Fire, a few decent songs (‘Scream Aim Fire’ and ‘Waking The Demon’) and an overall relatively good piece.

But recently this has been slipping. There is no denying it, with their 2010 album, Fever, Bullet For My Valentine began to really play to their audience. Songs became repetitive and samey, more frequently touching on cliché subjects such as violence and heartbreak than in the last two albums. Despite this one or two half-decent numbers were still present on Fever, though the album had nothing on The Poison.

I wonder how the band of 2005 would react if you showed them their latest release. Temper Temper’s tracklisting alone is enough to make people cringe in pain. ‘Riot’, ‘Temper Temper’ and ‘Truth Hurts’ are just a few examples of the grumpy-twelve-year-old-song-titles that the band present, and when the music starts playing, I somewhat doubt cringes will subside.

The album is nothing more than a commercialised and poor portrayal of modern metal. Annoying riffs that don’t sound particularly musical or fit with the songs all-too frequently come stomping through the repetitive, unimaginative drum-lines and the disappointing vocals. The album starts with a big, powerful, heavy metal crash, happily thrown forward by ‘Breaking Point’. Yet it seems the band put all their effort into this broody opening, as the rest of the song is flat and unimpressive. It’s sad to say, this sets the tone for the rest of the album.

The following track, ‘Truth Hurts’, sees the band tries to employ the use of techy, djent-like rhythms. As expected, this sounds awful and sets the tone for the rest of the song. Matt also tries his hand at some Matthew Bellamy (Muse) high-pitched cleans. Instead of sounding climatic and epic, as perhaps they were intended to, (it’s hard to tell where a climax may be, the song doesn’t go anywhere) he instead achieves the ‘kicked-very-hard-in-the-nuts’ effect and does little more than sound like he’s in uncomfortable pain.

 

Matt’s voice had never sounded so bad: throughout the album his tone is grating and sits uncomfortably with the half-hearted, plinky-plonky clean guitars and repetitive, monotonous riffs. The lyrics have never been so cliché, either. Almost every chorus on the album is composed the same: slow, simple drum lines and blocky, two-note power chords. Over the top of this, Matt repeats the song’s title, followed either by a non-atmospheric echo or a boring Bullet “woooah-oooah-oooah”.

There is little respite from the boring commercialised garbage in this album. Padge’s solos do their best, but most of the time it’s too-little too-late. Yet when the listener is fairly sure all hope is lost, ‘Dead To The World’ begins. The song, though still pretty repetitive and weak, does provide a few shreds of atmospheric, almost nostalgic, relief. Perhaps, you think, it’s not so bad after all. Then ‘Riot’ happens.

There aren’t enough words for how much I detest this song. Straight away the headache-inducing and mercilessly-repeated single, offbeat C note kicks in, and doesn’t piss off until the song ends. This mind-numbingly annoying excuse for a riff is, of course, accompanied by what, in my opinion, Matt’s best display of angsty-teenager, hormone-induced, rebellion-based crap. “Run from da sirens, run from da law” is, of course, accompanied by Bullet’s “woooah-oooah-oooah”. Even worse, Matt seems to take great joy in yelling “fucking” at every opportunity, rather like the moody twelve year old the band so appeals to, who has just learnt his first swear-word. To try and compensate for this dismal display of processed disappointment, Padge shreds like his popularity depends on it (because, well, it does) in the latter half of the song.

I used to love Bullet. When this album finally ended a huge wave or relief and sadness washed over me. I feel sorry for the guys in Bullet, who used to make up a pretty decent band. This album is a rather large stain on their careers and the opinions of proper metal fans. Unfortunately, this album will shoot them to fame with the fans of processed, plastic, mainstream trash, as it is designed to do so.

 

Overall – 3/10

Best Song: Dead To The World – 5/10

Worst Song: Riot – 1/10