New Music

Temper Temper

Bullet For My Valentine are back with their new studio album TEMPER TEMPER, this is their fourth album since 2010's Fever. Now, I have to be honest, I got in to Bullet late on, well not until Scream Aim Fire, but it even took me a while to get in to that as well, but when I did I was hooked and when Fever dropped well I was blown away, I actually must of had Fever on rotation in my stereo for about 2 straight months.

Back to TEMPER TEMPER, when I first read about TEMPER TEMPER coming out, like all Bullet fans I got pretty excited, especially after the offering we got from AXEWOUND! I was getting pretty dam excited of the prospects of a follow on from Fever, after the material Matt had written for the AXEWOUND album.

Although I must add, I knew Matt had already stated that he didn't see Bullet as a full on heavy metal band, that the AXEWOUND project was just that a side project of heavier material he wanted to try out.

Still it was an awesome album, and i still hope secretly that some of that heaviness might creep through to the new Bullet album....

So out comes the video for the first track TEMPER TEMPER, now when the tempo and the riff kicked off my ears pricked up and I got a little excited.....sadly for me that's as far as it went....I actually wondered if that video was for real ?. I wasn't impressed at all, to be honest I don't really like music videos where the band aren't in them, it also reminded me a bit of a cheap pop video. 

I don't know if I've missed the point of the video ?? and if I have, please feel free to tell me, but to me it just didn't symbolise anything poignant, at the end of the day the song is titled TEMPER TEMPER so I didn't feel like I needed to watch a video of people losing theirs, irony maybe ??

Also lyrically I don't think personally the song holds much weight, yes I get what Matt's singing about, but I just think this is a real basic song, and I think it has the potential to be so much more.  

Next to come was the video for RIOT, this time a lot better I thought, having Matt walk around a run down town which looks like it's already seen a few riots, and having  people follow him around with back shots of the band was cool, sorry to say it nothing special again, but much better than the video for TEMPER TEMPER.

Again lyrically I though nothing special again, a good simple song, short and catchy, the type of song that will get fans singing along at live shows and festivals, but nothing to write home about.

I'm afraid for me the album falls short of anything I was expecting from Bullet, there's nothing here to majorly excite I don't think, to me the album seems to lack something, that certain buzz I normally get from a Bullet album. Its really hard for me to pick out any outstanding tracks to be honest, I've had the album playing in my car now for a week and I'm still struggling to get in to it.

For me the songs "Truth Hurts" "P.O.W" "Dead To The World" (co written by a certain Chris Jericho of the band Fozzy by the way) really fail to live up to anything, we even had it playing in the shop on the day of release and it didn't do the album any favours I'm afraid to say.

As I said earlier I have brought the album, one to keep supporting the metal community, and also I am a Bullet fan and I do believe in support the band's I like, who Knows may be it will grow on me in time ??

I have read that with this album Matt went in to the studio with the same principles as with the AXEWOUND album, unfortunately this time I don't think the formula worked, may be next time around we might get a Bullet album that can stand up to POISON, SCREAM AIM FIRE, and FEVER.

On TEMPER TEMPER it would have been nice to hear some .......TEMPER TEMPER!

ENGIMA.