A Review of Bullet For My Valentine's Temper Temper

Temper Temper, the 2013 release from metalcore/hard rock band Bullet For My Valentine, is the perfect example of what happens when a previously innovative band proceeds to sell out.

What’s wrong with that? What exactly is "selling out"?

I don’t have a perfect definition, but from what I understand, after seeing bands who have avoided it and bands who have succumbed to it, selling out is what happens when a band creates "mainstream" (I hate to use that term, but it’s most accurate) music for the sake of popularity, selling albums, selling tickets, or all of the above. Creativity is lost in exchange for new fans. Staleness, simplicity, and "catchiness" are thrown out there in an attempt to catch the attention of the majority of listeners who will skip a song if it doesn't appeal to them the first time. The end result is subpar music.


When done poorly, a band attempting to “expand horizons” (read: expand their fan base) only loses the unadulterated inspiration of previous work at the hands of the generally shallow tastes of listeners outside their original fan base.

Of course, a band moving in different musical directions, whilst staying true to the policy of creating the most imaginative music they can (Linkin Park, As I Lay Dying, etc.)  is different – the key idea here is staleness, and avoiding it. Even bands that seemed to have not changed in a million years, releasing albums with the same sound over and over (Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, Rise Against, etc.) can keep away the dreaded stale by virtue of staying true to their sound instead of succumbing to the lows of mainstream radio.

If there’s any positive to selling out, it usually means the band has set extremely high standards for itself with previous releases. Luckily – or unfortunately – the case here with BFMV is no different.

In 2008, Bullet For My Valentine released Scream Aim Fire, my personal favorite by them – an album with a beautiful balance of hard-hitting power, captivating guitar work, constantly-shifting song structures, meaningful lyrics, and the hints of inspired melody that seemed to have since left BFMV. Every song was perfect metalcore, with only very rare lapses in genius and creativity. In conjunction with their epic debut full-length album, The Poison (2006), and several earlier EP’s, BFMV garnered themselves a dedicated fan base, and with good reason – the bar was set high. They had direction and seemed to have the musical qualities that lacked in many other bands.

In 2010, BFMV took a slight step in the wrong direction with Fever. Granted, it’s difficult to keep up standards set as high as SAF and The Poison, but a couple songs were blatant shots at hitting mainstream radio with terribly bland melodies and tacky lyrics. However, the vast majority of the songs were very good, with a nice balance of harsh and clean tones making for a reasonable album. The only problem was the album had a worrying feel of “selling out” to it – a precursor to their 2013 flop.

Even the album artwork on Temper Temper is awful and overly try-hard – it’s a forced reference to their 2005 EP, Hand Of Blood, but it just looks disgusting. But I digress – let’s visit some songs to see what I mean regarding the music.

Here’s the track list:

1 Breaking Point
2 Truth Hurts
3 Temper Temper
4 P.O.W.
5 Dirty Little Secret
6 Leech
7 Dead To The World
8 Riot
9 Saints & Sinners
10 Tears Don’t Fall (Part 2)
11 Livin’ Life (On The End Of A Knife)

Immediately, I was slightly intrigued by the title “Tears Don’t Fall (Part 2)”, since one of BFMV’s biggest hits from The Poison was entitled “Tears Don’t Fall” – I was curious as to how an addendum three albums later would turn out. (In the end, I’d be disappointed by their obvious attempt at recreating success, an almost desperate appeal to “older” fans by inserting a nostalgic track in a failing album that held a totally different sound.)

Temper Temper starts relatively solidly, with “Breaking Point” and “Truth Hurts” representing conventional BFMV, albeit watered-down in all areas – guitar work, lyricism, song structure – in comparison to The Poison or Scream Aim Fire.

“Breaking Point” takes off immediately with a weak-ish scream (newcomers don’t realize how powerful Matt Tuck’s voice used to be), followed by an intriguing, fast guitar riff. Underneath, a sick bass line boils with the same intensity – and for 27 seconds, BFMV seemed to have moved in a positive musical direction, something to contrast with their previous metalcore whilst maintaining a fresh, innovative sound. I can’t help but thinking that had that 27 seconds of awesomeness been inserted somewhere in The Poison, it would have been lauded with immeasurable praise.

Then Matt Tuck’s lyrics and failing voice kicks in, and intense disappointment wells up within me as I listen to a band that I used to respect and love so much. This kind of failure is not common, and it truly takes a lot to fall that far. Having heard what Matt Tuck is capable of, I simply know that the lyrics in “Breaking Point” are just bad. Hell, the lyrics in the entire album are just bad.

What I mean by that is that the lyrics are vague angst with no direction or meaning. “This time you better bite your tongue / think twice before you open that mouth / save your breath, hold it in your lungs” is what I get from the petty one-dimensional title track, “Temper Temper”. What’s more, the lyrics get even worse as the album progresses. As a preview of what’s to come, I listened to Tuck, to open the song “Livin’ Life”, menacingly sing “I don’t know where to start”, and all I could do was cringe and die a little on the inside. It’s as if he sat down with a pen and paper and wrote “I don’t know where to start” because he really didn’t know where to start.

The most disappointing part about the whole lyrics thing is that it seems like half the songs are messages saying “don’t push me or I’ll break you” – which works, sure, for one or two songs. Matt Tuck, though, seems to have major anger issues when every single verse is about one more this, one more that, all hope is lost and yadda yadda insert buildup, followed by a mediocre chorus singing about starting a riot and beating people up. I’m intensely disappointed just writing this.

Moving past the lyrics, the uninspired, run-of-the-mill guitar work in the first two tracks make me truly appreciate what BFMV used to offer in their EP’s and first two full-lengths. The rhythmic, often palm-muted guitars work in Temper Temper are sometimes just lazy. After a burning, fiery intro riff, the guitars fade into mediocrity as background – for back of a better word – “effects”. Rather than driving the album, the guitars seem more like they were inserted to supplement a tone rather than to set that tone with driving riffs. It’s gut-wrenching to listen to as a metal fan, and not in a good way. The lead single, “Riot”, is a perfect example of lazy riffing and using guitars mainly for effect rather than instrumentation. The riff grew on me as I forced myself to listen to the song more, but it doesn’t live up to half of what BFMV used to put out.

This brings me to another point I’d like to make about sell-out albums: when listened to alone and with no point of reference, the album isn’t half bad – besides the all-around atrocious lyrics, the instrumentation is nice and the chord progressions, while cliché, draw the listener in, as they are designed to do. The songs follow an orderly structure and rarely vary, with the obligatory clean guitars thrown in there (as in “P.O.W.”, etc), and it’s all easy listening. If I had never listened to metal before, I’d call this album a sweet balance of brutality and melody. But I have listened to a wide variety of metal, and this album, in many departments, is not a sweet balance of brutality and melody. It’s a balance between trying to appeal to the public en masse with stale and unmoving music, whilst still trying to look and sound metal.

And it’s not just this album.

The nearly exact same thing can be said about All That Remains’s 2012 release, A War You Cannot Win, a blatant radio-friendly sellout after five absolutely stunning full-length albums that pioneered the genre of metalcore. It’s a painful reality that has been affecting way too many bands.

That’s how bands get new fans, after all – if at all. The upshot is that they almost certainly alienate “old fans” in the process.

But back to Temper Temper. I’d like to say a few positive things about it, since I still believe the music is good, even if dismal in comparison to their other albums. The fourth track, “P.O.W.”, although it doesn’t utilize the cliché 6-7-8 chord progression as effectively as it could, has an admittedly nice atmosphere that provides a relief from the directionless songs of “Temper Temper” or “Riot”. Matt Tuck seems infinitely more comfortable singing with longing emotion in his voice rather than attempting to force a menacing angst into the song.

An example of where the feeling of a song really clicks is in the bridge to “P.O.W.” – this time, the gut wrenching is real as Tuck screams “Make it go away / all I want to do is live another day”, a passionate plea from the appropriately named “prisoner of war”. In an album pretty much devoid of these moments, I appreciated every second of it.

After a completely forgettable fifth track (“Dirty Little Secret” – whatever), the album kicks into a song that really exemplifies everything the album is about: “Leech”. After a driving snare intro, a power chord slams home, followed by rumbling bass and more driving drum work. A catchy verse of “hey, leech” repeats, followed by an eye-roll inducing buildup (“nobody’s listening / nobody cares”) and a chorus that actually grew on me – I somehow did not detest it. The bridge, rather than the usual guitar solo, was some more effect-making with dual guitars. Finally, of course, the lyrics throughout were definitely below par.

That’s the album in a nutshell.

I don’t really wish to comment on “Dead To The World”, “Saints & Sinners”, or “Livin’ Life”; instead, I’ll just say that the drum work was by far my favorite part of them all. Moose – the drummer – is my favorite BFMV member at this point. Other than that, all three tracks were pretty much more of the same, bland, sell-out music that would appeal to anyone who hasn’t heard earlier BFMV.

Finally, there’s “Tears Don’t Fall (Part 2)”. Though this review will end on a sour note, it fits perfectly because this track was an obvious attempt at reminding fans of how successful BFMV was earlier. Unfortunately, it also reminded fans of how much better BFMV was earlier.

The song itself follows the same exact structure of the 2006 hit single, “Tears Don’t Fall”, with the same chord progression and rhythm in the riff – but everything about it was so watered down that I could only shake my head as I listened to BFMV try and relive the inspiration that they used to have. There’s a cool moment when Tuck screams “Let’s go again” in reference to the “Let’s go” scream that kicked off the original song. and the guitar solo of the 2013 version is actually amazing – by far my favorite part of the album. However, the attempt to recreate the same overall ambience is quite simply, a failure.

Immediately after finishing Temper Temper, I listened to the original “Tears Don’t Fall” and the rest of The Poison, and my ears could not have been more grateful.

It looks like instead of enjoying their latest release, I’ll be listening to BFMV’s inspired albums from 2008 and earlier.  I would recommend this album to those new to metal and looking for songs to ease them into the genre of metalcore – but for the rest of those knowledgeable about this genre, I suggest looking elsewhere for the metalcore that we all know and love.
~Bryan for Rhythm And News