Review Summary: For being their first full album, it is a thriller. Features a great all around performance that is necessary on every CD. It has minor flaws, but is still a great CD nonetheless.
Bullet For My Valentine, another talented, yet fairly unheard of band coming out of the United Kingdom, until they released the two singles for this album. The album, entitled "The Poision" has much anticipated guitar riffs and great drum work. Matt Tuck's Vocals aren't too bad either.
The metalcore band got their first single released to the radio and a few video games, including Madden NFL '06 and NHL '06, with the song being the hard hitting
4 Words (To Choke Upon). The whole band gets into the act throughout the song and most of the CD, featuring hard hitting bass riffs and high flying guitar solos. Matt does an excellent job screaming throuhgout the album, and creates a wide variety of sounds on this album.
There are two standout tracks I want to mention. They are
Tears Don't Fall and
All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me). Tears Don't Fall is the most well put together song on the album, and the soft intro on the guitar leads up to the full eargasm that you hear throughout the song. This is probably the most radio friendly song on the album, as the others are a bit on the harder song. The lyrics are depressing, like they are in about just every song on the CD. Matt does a good job of singing them, but they could have chosen some better lyrics. Some great riffs and solos happen at the 3:04 mark that are pretty awesome that stand out from the rest of the album. ATTIH(RAM), the other song I mentioned, features a great acoustic guitar intro to a song, considering it is a metalcore band. The difference between the soft versus and the hard hitting choruses is nearly flawless, it is that good.
The sound of this album is pretty good, considering that they use two guitarists. They both do a good job of not stealing the spotlight, but rather taking the advantage of using two guitarists and putting it to the max (at least through most of the album). The clean guitar isn’t used often, but when it is used, it is simply brilliant. The drums provide the driving beat that keeps the music from stalling. The cymbals and snare are used well. They also provide the the “boom” in the songs, if you know what I mean. Michael Thomas drum beats can sound very technical at one point, but then very simple at another point, so he knows how to mix things up.
The only flaw I find in this album, is that Jason James needs to turn the knob up on his bass guitar. When you hear it, it is pretty good, but you should be able to hear it all the time. Everything about this album is great except for that. Bass can add a lot to the album, and if only we could hear this, imagine what it would sound like.
Overall, I think this is a great album, with an aggressive feel to it. There are a couple skippable tracks, but still a good listen for most, and it features a lot of heavy songs.
Recommended Songs:
Her Voice Resides
4 Words (To Choke Upon)
Tears Don’t Fall
All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)
The End
(this album is pretty bad too)
