I think it’s a safe bet that just about every teenager in the late 90s/early 2000s, who picked up an electric guitar, at least tried to play some variation of what some would call Heavy Metal at some point. It’s just common practice. De-tuning a guitar, cranking the gain, and pounding out some grinding power chords just feels good. Whether you are trying to express your angst or just trying to look cool, Heavy Metal was there for you. By the time the mid 2000s rolled around, all the kids who played Metal on their guitars, got good enough to broaden their horizons past Korn or Godsmack riffs. Sweep picking, pinched harmonics, and rhythmic speed picking, became added ingredients bands used to make their ‘art’ hold more credibility or at least a bit more complex. From that movement, came bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage, and Bullet For My Valentine.
Bullet For My Valentine, features fast, hard hitting, chunky rhythms, fret stretching scale riffs, top-of-lungs vocals, but with key changing breaks and melodic choruses, that seem to be tailor made for singing a long with. Describing them sounds as if they were an interesting band but sadly, around 2003 to 2006, there were about 150 other bands who used the same model and sounded nearly identical to each other. A Metalcore lynch mob will probably be knocking on my door for saying this but, even back then, I couldn’t decipher one band from the next. Apparently plenty people did, because Bullet For My Valentine have managed to stick around on the scene. To be fair, Heavy Metal isn’t really my favorite genre. I do enjoy some of the classic stuff like Megadeth or Iron Maiden, but outside of a few songs here and there, the current state of the genre is quite boring and uninspired. As a guitarist, I appreciate the skill and talent that most Metal bands offer, but at the end of the day, it’s just not my thing.
For their fifth album Venom, Bullet For My Valentine allegedly went back to their roots. I can’t confirm this because as I pointed out in my previous paragraph, I’m not sure if I ever really listened to an entire Bullet For My Valentine album in one setting, because I wouldn’t be certain if it were Avenged Sevenfold or Killswitch Engage that I listened to. With that said, I listened to Venom as a stand-alone record, free from any preconceptions I may have taken from previous releases I may or may not have listened to.
Venom sounds pretty much exactly like what I imagined before I even pressed play. Chunky guitars, double bass drums beats, Cookie Monster-esque screaming, melodic choruses, and juvenile lyrics about being angry and/or misunderstood. And that’s it. No more, no less. If you have listened to any modern Metal record, Metalcore, or whatever variation of the genre the kids are labeling these days. Just about every song is made on a very simple template: Intro. screaming vocal verse. melodic chorus. solo. melodic chorus. break down. end. I know that sounds like I’m generalizing here but really I’m not. Every single song on Venom follows the formula set up by the first song. Same speed, and I’m almost positive every song is in the same key.
If you have ever found yourself in a Guitar Center and seen a random fifteen year old playing any given electric guitar plugged into an amp that likely costs more than the car that brought him there, you have pretty much heard the guitar riffs Venom has to offer. There are some pretty cool breaks here and there, like the break neck speed of the solo in “Army Of Noise” or the gnarly, chugga chugga grinding break in “Hell Or High Water” which reminds me of some the later levels in the original DOOM for PC. Other than that, everything is so predictable and cliché, it’s almost like the production is merely from a “Make Your Own Metalcore Album Kit”.
Speaking of clichés, the major travesty of Venom would be the lyrics. When writing a Metal song, I’m sure there are some tropes you kind of sort of have to adhere to, like songs about being upset, pain, dying, being brought back from the dead (depending on what subgenre you’re writing for) etc., but here,Bullet For My Valentine’s lyrics are just juvenile and laughable. So much so, there were quite a few times that I thought I was listening to a parody, or at least written by the same fifteen year old I mentioned earlier, on the way to that Guitar Center. As generic and predictable the lyrics are, Matthew Tuck’s vocal delivery is just plain and uninteresting. Each song starts with a grumpy growl that leads into a uninspired chorus that is seemingly only there so the kids at live shows have something to sing along with, or as a labeling system so Bullet For My Valentine doesn’t accidently start playing a different song. Whichever the reason, it’s never a good thing when you can only tell what song is playing by it’s chorus.
There really isn’t much else to cover here. It’s not that Bullet For My Valentine’s Venom is terrible, it’s just so paint-by-numbers, it’s beyond boring. After listening to it from start to finish, I felt like I had listened to every single Metal album from 2003 through 2015. I guess that doesn’t make it a bad album pre se, it just doesn’t offer anything in way of significant value. It’s like eating a Slim Jim for dinner. Yeah it’s technically meat, and will probably get you an extra day of life by fighting off starvation, but there’s no nutritional value whatsoever. If you have never listened to a metal band from the past two decades and for some strange reason want to start now, Venom will do just fine. Basically the songs sound as if their sole purpose are to be used in Resident Evil movies, or fan made Dragon Ball Z videos on YouTube. If that is your thing, I feel deeply sorry for you, but more power to you all the same.
Rating: 1.5/5