BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE HAVE MY TEMPER TEMPER RISING.

“Everything has changed and you’ve become a total stranger. I’ve seen another side to you, one I never even knew existed.” The lyrics of soon to be released ‘Dirty Little Secret’ on Bullet For My Valentine’s new record Temper Temper.

Those words resonate among many fans, those that have become disillusion with the ‘Don Gilmore Era’ of Bullet For My Valentine’s Fever and Temper Temper releases.

Philosophically speaking, music has changed since Jeff Killed John became Bullet For My Valentine, Metallica covers became studio albums and smashed up guitars became Jackson signature models, but the golden rule still exists, please the the fans or there is no point in making the music.

Sony BMG records signed Matt Tuck, Michael Padget, Jason James and Michael Thomas in 2005 as, according to Tuck himself, “We thought that a lot more doors would be open to us” with Sony than the other offer from Roadrunner Records. August of that year saw the band release their second EP through Trustkill Records.

Hand Of Blood, the band's 2nd EP

Decibel magazine writer, Daniel Lukes, wrote an article entitled “Screamocore takes a dump where it eats”, in response to Bullet’s second EP ‘Hand Of Blood’. The release included ‘4 Words To Choke Upon’, ‘Hand Of Blood’ and ‘Cries In Vain’, which for many was the first time the Welsh Metal-Core band asserted themselves into the music scene.

Reviewers, such as Lukes, were less than impressed with the “Myspace-cutter goth-heartache obsession” but despite this, the EP paved the way for one of the, (if not the biggest) UK metal band’s meteoric rise to fame. This was due to a band of loyal fans, who’s numbers increased as copies of the album were passed from locker to locker in high schools across the UK and US.

The band have come along way since then, having released two studio albums - ‘The Poison’ and ‘Scream Aim Fire’, under British producer Colin Richardson, as well Fever, under internationally acclaimed producer Don Gilmore. Both producers have worked with many famous names, but have distinctly different styles and ideals in music, visible through albums released under their ‘branding’.

Don Gilmore, Temper Temper's producer

Richardson’s style allowed the band to express themselves through hard-hitting riffs, melodic vocals and powerful screams, whilst Gilmore pushed the band to slow things down, use simpler riffs in an attempt to broaden with spectrum of listeners, and ultimately be mire profitable.

Fever was BFMV’s most highly anticipated album, with a new producer and a few songs released early to build the hype, most fans enjoyed the “refreshing change” with the handful of die-hards asking where the “real bullet” had gone. The album was released in March 2010, with the Welsh boys playing a secret show streamed on Myspace in April for the fans unable to make the one date the band had in London that year.

O2 Academy Islington sold out for the secret show

My best friend and I sat in his garage, beer in hand, watching my old netbook’s 10.1 inch screen to see the band we had watched, admired and at times emulated with our guitars when no one was looking.

At the time we were suitably impressed, as our favourite band had released something new, it wasn’t particularly bad, just different than what we had expected, even with the taster in the early release of ‘Begging For Mercy’ to sweeten the deal.

We commented then, and have repeated many times since, something changed with that album and if they were to release something else under Gilmore, it would be make or break for the band.

You can question our judgment, 17 and 18 year olds talking about a band who had been playing music as long as we were alive, but our thoughts have since been blanketed across the board by fans on the bands official Facebook and Twitter pages.

I’m now a sports journalist by trade, whilst my friend has continued his passion for music in various bands and education programs, but both of have become more and more detached from the band we idolised in high school.

So if you’re still with me now, here it is, my ‘Daniel Lukes-esque’ attack on Temper Temper.

The album opens with the obligatory Bullet scream and pick-slide which, perhaps wrongly, made me assume I might hear something similar to The Poison (wishful thinking?) or Scream Aim Fire at least. In actuality it was a false sense of hope, which only added to my disappointment.

The first track entitled ‘Breaking Point’ disengaged me after 28 seconds when the riff breaks and Tuck starts singing in a semi-hardcore voice. Long gone are the melodic, meaningful harmonies of his voice and guitar, we are now presented with angry lyrics that like a violent drunk, seemingly starting trouble for the sake of it, leading me to question whether this album was written to please the fans, become more profitable or simply see out the contract they signed with Gilmore.

It’s not getting any better as the second track ‘Truth Hurts’ starts. A very standard, generic riff opens the song, similar to many I’ve heard at unsigned open mic nights up and down the country. Going back to my analogy of the abusive drunk, the theme continues with lyrics such as “one more drink, one more pill, just more lie to make me kill”.

Title track ‘Temper Temper’ follows, a highly generic sound, that will be marketable without question, but moves away from the core sound Bullet became memorable for.

*WARNING: I HAVE WRITTEN SOMETHING POSITIVE HERE*
P.O.W, track four on the album, is slightly pleasing, as it seems to use their roots of metalcore and melodic singing over violent screaming. After listening to the album for the fourth time, my ears picked up when this song came on. I stopped writing and listened. Bullet have returned.

The words ring in my ears, I forgot how unhappy I was with the rest of the album. In comparison to earlier, better albums, it could at best have been picked out of Scream Aim Fire at best but more likely from Fever, however is still musically a step in the right direction for me.

As Matt sings, you feel the story-telling back in his voice, he has a passion for this song which comes across in the way he sings and screams, similar to ‘Hit The Floor’ or ‘4 Words’.

Skipping a few tracks for fear of writing lots of repetition, I move on to the track I was looking forward to hearing the most, as were many fans on Twitter hashtags #BFMV and #TemperTemper.

Tear Don’t Fall (Part 2) had the potential to make or break the album, reigniting the love of fans from The Poison, by reaffirming their commitment to the music and lyrics of their former selves.
Disappointed doesn’t even cover it.

As with many of the songs on the album, the intro is great, especially with the feeling of the original Tears Don’t Fall peppered throughout. The first words, “LETS GO AGAIIIIINNN!” had me wondering if I had judged the album too quickly and if it would just need a few more plays to grow on me, but sadly it again goes downhill from there.

I failed to find another link, or even similarity to the origional song until about a minute before the end when we hear Matt’s harmonic voice reappear for a split second as he sings “Your tears don’t fall”, so why was it made as a part two?

It sounds completely different, the lyrics have very little connection and the only connections audible are when signing the title of both tracks at the end of the song.

To sum up, I think from a monetary point of view the album will sell, not as well as any of the other albums they have released, which will inevitably be excused by “the state of the music industry”. Music magazine such as Kerrang! And Rock Sound have already shown their support for the band with front-page coverage and numerous pages within.

For the rest of the year, I think Bullet will go on to their headline tour, play most of their new songs, a few from Fever, as well as Tear’s Don’t Fall (the original), Waking The Demon and Hearts Burst Into Fire before heading to Download, where they will meet a wall of resistance to their new sound and revert back to their much loved older sound for the remainder of their set to satisfy the crowd, before calling it a day before the end of the year to “focus on new projects” such as AxeWound, where many of the Bullet faithful have gone for their fix of real metal guitar riffs and meaningful lyrics.

Matt Jaggar

I welcome your comments, criticism and feedback on this articles comments box below and on twitter @MDJaggar.