Bullet For My Valentine Albums Ranked

Bullet For My Valentine was a landmark for metalcore. With records like "The Poison" and "Scream Aim Fire", they prooved themselves and their future. Since 2005, band is together. Went through some lineup changes but two founding members still holding up. And we clearly see that Bullet For My Valentine is just about Matt Tuck from now on.

Since I reviewed Gravity, it's time to Bullet For My Valentine studio albums to see where Gravity will take place. Okay, no need to wonder its place that much. I still feel the heartbreak from that album. So, it's obvious.

6-) Gravity (2018)

Told ya. What is this, guys? You promised us something complex and something more progressive. I really wanna believe that band talked about the record after this one. There are nothing about progressive on this one. Same steps over and over again. It's like Padge is on vacation and Matt took over two guitars. I'm not saying that Matt Tuck is a bad guitar player. No, he is definetly a good player. But it feels like Gravity has no lead guitar. And techno parts are not covering the lack of it. Gravity is not BFMV. It's far away from where they started. I hope it won't go this way.

Highlights: "Leap of Faith", "Over It", "Crawling"

5-) Temper Temper (2013)

That was the St. Anger issue of BFMV, before Gravity came up. I never beat this album to the ground. I found some killer songs in it. But not enough, not really. This is the total departure from bands metalcore roots. Fever was the signal, this was the deal. Although, Fever is a good album. This is a mediocore.

Matt Tuck's haircut took away so many things. Bands creativity discreased and songs are started to sounds like each other. Guitar riffs are not that strong, that was the most unpleasant point. Temper Temper is an album that out of control. But, still way more upper level than Gravity.

Highlights:  "Breaking Point", "Temper Temper", "Tears Don't Fall Pt.2"

4-) Venom (2015)

Venom was a fuck-up cleaner. After tons of bad review that Temper Temper get, band decided to turn back to their roots. Lyrically, Venom was weak. First track "No Way Out" is the best song on this album, with worst lyrics... Heavy and clean vocal transitions were back on track and heavy riffs and heavier guitar tones took their places too. Missing spot is the originality. All tracks on this album feels the same. Heavy riff opener, clean/heavy vocal verse, probably clean and melodic chorus, breakdown and chorus again. It was what people want, but not the exact thing. Anyway, Venom was a little step forward from Temper Temper. Heavy record that you can totally bang your heads to. 

Highlights: "No Way Out", "Broken", "Skin"

3-) Scream Aim Fire (2008)

From now on, we'll talk about some good records. Scream Aim Fire is a straight heavy metal record with strong metalcore influences.  Young band members was still discovering their energy and capabilites. With this album, we see improved vocal lines from Matt Tuck. Some parts you can hear James Hetfield effect on his voice. They were still improving and there was lots to discover. There are still high school boy influences on their songs. My first BFMV song was "Waking the Demon". When I first watched the official video, I found classic high school theme way too boring. But the riff was good, vocals were simple and nice. So, what the hell! Started to dig into them. 

With Scream Aim Fire, BFMV introduced themselves to the mainstream. Easily consumable songs and simplicity was working.

Highlights: "Scream Aim Fire", "Hearts Burst Into Fire", "Waking the Demon"

2-) Fever (2010)

Scream Aim Fire was a huge release for the band. BFMV was the band that youth wanted all along: Easily understandable and little bit rebellious. That's why simple and sometimes pointless lyrics was working. After their second album, band decided to change their style a little bit. With Fever, we see more heavy metal and even hard rock elements. Maybe we can consider this one as a melodic metalcore. If you look up different rankings, you may see Fever down below. Especially lower than Scream Aim Fire. Fever has a special place in my heart. Melodically it was way more effective than Scream Aim Fire. 

Highlights: "Your Betrayal", "Fever", "The Last Fight", "Alone"

1-) The Poison (2005)

For me, The Poison is one of the finest metalcore records and of course best among all BFMV records. Yes, I love the band but I have to admit that they are a little mediocre. However, The Poison doesn't feel like mediocre at all. From beginning to end, it full of catchy melodies and heavy guitar riffs. That's what I missed about BFMV. Latest albums doesn't have any complex and catchy riffs. Opening riff of "Suffocating Under Words of Sorrow" is a total beast! Had to admit, I think BFMV used all of their resources and we got the best stuff with The Poison. 

With this record, BFMV had an unforgettable concert in Brixton Academy. With just one album, they played a sold out show at Brixton. Unfortunately, that was BFMV's finest moment and the road was all the way down after that. 

Highlights: "4 Words (To Choke Upon)", "Tears Don't Fall", "Suffocating Under Words of Sorrow", "The Poison"

Bullet For My Valentine "Gravity" Album Review

This band was my high school band. There is a strong connection between me and BFMV. Their lyrics always like teenager-ish, always a break-up theme and no deep emotions but I loved them. They had catchy melodies and great riffs. They had great vocal lines, awesome transitions between clean and brutal/scream vocals. 'Had'. They had all this, before their newest record, "Gravity".

"Are we losing Bullet For My Valentine?", I said, after I heard their previous record "Venom". Venom had all the stuff that I mentioned above; vocal transitions, heavy riffs, etc. But, all of them was fake. It was like giving audience what they want. But that was not what band wants. I complained about Venom. After a while, I forget about Venom, totally. One thing that Gravity does right; it make me wanna listen Venom over and over again.

Okay, this is poppy metal . Or pop-metal. I don't know. It's something like that. They used synthesizer almost in every song. I'm not against that. But melodies are just falls flat. There is nothing special about techno things on this album. "Don't Need You" was the track that they released not long after Venom. Melodic riffs were gone, that was for sure. But vocals were pretty insane and song was little catchy. That was not a bad song. It was mediocre. It's painful that we faced the fact that Don't Need You is the best song on this album.

Actually, Don't Need You wasn't part of the new record. It was way before. So, let's take "Over It" as the first single of Gravity. BFMV is a common band between me and my sister. We listened BFMV together countless times. After I heard Over It, I went her room and said "Okay, BFMV is over. This is ther worst song. By far!". And after the album released, I regretted what I said before, again. Over It is one of the highlights of this album. Bad lyrics, simple transitions and simply no riff at all... You can headbang to it but after a while you would be over with this song.

After a while they released two more singles; "Piece of Me" and "Letting You Go". They promised that they will use complex rhythms. I believed that statement because after departure of founding drummer Moose, Matt Tuck brought his bandmate from AxeWound, Jason Bowld. He is a monster on drums! He is so strong that I wouldn't want to be his drum set. Bowld was my hope for this albums. In the end, we had weak and simple drum parts.

Gravity is like Matt Tuck's solo album. Mainstream one. Heavy pop or something like that, I don't even know that heavy pop is a thing or not. Michael Paget is a great lead guitar player. But I don't believe that he attended the recordings of Gravity. There are no single solo on this album. It's St. Anger issue all over again. What we get with Gravity is, "listen and forget" type of songs. Strong ones. Some of them you may forget while you listening to it. Can you enjoy Gravity? You can. I enjoyed a little. Melodic vocals are not that bad. Letting You Go has a enjoyable chorus. Title track is 'headbangable'. Also, song named "Crawling" released with deluxe edition. I strongly suggest you to check that one out. It's not old BFMV but we can take it as a consolation. Gravity full of fillers. That's a bitter truth. Songs like "Not Dead Yet", "Breaking Out" (another track that came with deluxe edition) and "Coma" is far away from creativeness. Talking about creativeness, 'Under Again's verse is a little bit rip off from Bring Me The Horizon's "Doomed".

You can give it a listen. Gravity is not about total bullshit. Sometimes you need a pointless headbang. You can put Gravity on and try some of its song. But you can also choose another album to headbang. A better one, maybe. I don't wanna believe that the band that recorded Gravity also recorded one of the best metalcore records in my opinion "The Poison". This is not BFMV.

Give it a chance: "Leap of Faith", "Over It", "Crawling"
Ranking: 2/5