Review Summary: 2021 was a great year for music...
...which is why Bullet For My Valentine's latest effort is a bit of a disappointment.
Don't get me wrong, this album is leagues above the atrocious low-point of their career, 2013's Temper Temper. Heck, it's not even a bad album, hence my rating. Yet it hovers ever so slightly above the line of mediocrity that it pales in comparison to a myriad of 2021 releases.
Presumably, many fans are glad to see the return of a "heavy" incarnation of BFMV. There is quite a lot of screaming on this record, dare I say more screaming than on their well-beloved debut effort, from which they have moved away quite a bit stylistically over the past 16 years - gone is the Pop-Metalcore with mass appeal and huge radio singles. The Metallica worship and Thrash leanings of their sophomore record Scream Aim Fire are absent for the most part as well. What does their self-titled record sound like then? Bendy and shreddy riffs, aggressive drumming with lots of double-bass, slightly sub-par clean vocals and a plethora of energetic screams.
The album opens with Parasite, a decent enough track held back by its intro consisting of garbled radio excerpts of some older BFMV songs, which severely overstays its welcome. The song does, however, set the tone for most of the record, since it is unrelenting and fast, with some parts even sounding like they wouldn't feel out of place on a Slipknot record. Another thing that is noticeable right away is the sub-par drum production. It's nowhere near St. Anger bad, yet distracting enough to slightly lessen one's enjoyment of the music. The lighter and slower moments on the record, found in tracks like My Reverie and Rainbow Veins, do a good job of breaking through the monotony of aggression and provide some much-needed contrast. The songwriting is decent, no doubt, yet it fails to capture the magic found on The Poison or, to a lesser extent, Scream Aim Fire.
In conclusion, BFMV's self-titled album, while decent enough, doesn't do enough to really impress anyone. It's heavy, fast and might scratch your itch for aggressive (more-or-less) modern metalcore, but don't expect anything groundbreaking. Unfortunately, it remains to be seen whether the boys from Wales will ever be able to ascend back to the heights they once peaked on.
