Review Summary: Mainstream metal at its absolute worst.
Bullet for My Valentine fall under a very broad category of uninteresting mainstream metal bands. A category of bands devoid of any substance or depth that cling to very standard, bland songwriting techniques, and write songs with decent enough hooks to get them enough recognition to keep going for years and years. One would hope that by their fourth album BFMV would actually try something new and, dare I say, experimental, but no,
Temper Temper relies on nothing but these hooks to get by and because of that, it falls flat. None of the songs on
Temper Temper stand out from one another in any way. The album is one big 45 minute blur of bland songs with cheesy choruses that get old before the tracks even end. Don’t get me wrong I’m a sucker for catchy songs, but there’s a fine line between songs being catchy and songs being simply uninspired, and unfortunately
Temper Temper is filled with nothing but the latter.
Here’s a sneak peak at BFMV’s foolproof songwriting formula:
1)
Write a generic riff: It doesn’t even have to be good, just good enough to get the audience past the first 10 seconds of the song. From then, the vocalist will vomit over whatever the hell he wants with no regard for the mediocre instrumentals, thus ruining any momentum the song may have had going for it. Easy enough.
2)
Power chord filled chorus: After repeating the main riff about 20 times more than it should’ve been, enter a power chord infested chorus with no direction or build up. Oh, and it has to be the same four chords over and over. No interesting chord progressions or flashy guitar hooks – just the same boring chords that thousands of other bands have used countless times.
3)
Nasally vocals: BFMV is much too sophisticated for instrumental sections. No no no, BFMV is the real deal and needs proper accompaniment, and nothing shows this more than the omnipresent vocals by Matthew Tuck. If we’re lucky, he gives the rhythm section five seconds to shine on each song before he relentlessly and thoroughly defecates all over them. Harsh vocals are sparsely used, and despite how mundane the screams are on this record, they’re far better than the clean vocals. It’s not even that the cleans are
that bad, because I’m sure if used sparsely enough they could be at least passable for this kind of music; it’s just that they’re
everywhere. Nevertheless, Mr. Tuck insists on belting out these insipid melodies for his unwilling audience’s displeasure. Yay us.
4)
Pop song structure: Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus. Why even try to innovate these days, right?
And last but not least, no BFMV song is complete without…
5)
Stupid lyrics: E.g.
Whooooa
Riot!
Whooooa
Riot!
…
Because of this dreadful formula, nothing about
Temper Temper is worthwhile. I'll admit, it does have some brief moments of potential, and I mean very brief. There are a few riffs here and there that are quite enjoyable, almost head bang worthy, namely the main riffs of ‘Breaking Point’ and ‘Dirty Little Secret’ and the solo section of ‘Riot,’ but even in these small moments of decency there’s no substance present. Already by the second listen these songs lose what little flair they had. Hell, most of the songs get irritating before they even finish, and if the sheer blandness of the songs isn’t enough to turn you off then the abysmal vocals will.
I recommend
Temper Temper to no one who values their ears. People looking for run-of-the-mill mainstream metal (for whatever reason) can find it done much better by other bands. It’s pretty sad when you think about it; generic mainstream metal is hard to mess up, but BFMV manage to succeed with flying colors.
Bravo, BFMV. Bravo.
