Bullet for My Valentine - Fever
Record Label: Jive Records
Release Date: April 27, 2010
There is some music that I quite simply am embarrassed to listen to. I don't mean stuff like your everyday guilty pleasures, like Cobra Starship or Forever the Sickest Kids or something. I mean things that actually embarrass me. Usually I don't really listen to these things, I kind of just hear them on the radio or when I'm with a group of friends that have poor music taste. I'm talking about the kind of stuff that comes on and you immediately want to get away on Southwest Airlines. Unfortunately, Bullet for My Valentine's third full length album and first for Jive Records falls into this category. A far cry from Bullet's earlier work, Fever is for the most part a terribly unentertaining, underwhelming album.
Having experienced a fair amount of critical acclaim with their Hand of Blood EP and first full-length The Poison, Bullet for My Valentine stumbled a bit on their last release, Scream Aim Fire. The group's upcoming album absolutely pales in comparison to each of these earlier releases. Having been a fan of their early work and even enjoying Scream Aim Fire, I found myself surprised at several points in Fever, often just wondering what exactly Bullet for My Valentine were even doing. The album starts off with "Your Betrayal", which features a mosh-worthy introduction that lasts over a minute. However, after this promising introduction, vocalist Matt Tuck delves into a half whispered/half sung verse that ruins the song right away. It's a shame because the chorus is somewhat catchy despite how astonishingly typical it is. The whispered fiasco strikes again with another verse and the "ooh's and ahh's" in the bridge after the second chorus are, for lack of a better word, horseshit.
The album continues down the road to no return with the title track. A decent musical number, "Fever" prevents you from even putting this song on your iPod at all with its lyrics. As bad as the generic song theme is, the bridge is what proves to bring the most lolz: "Come here you naughty girl/You're such a tease/You look so beautiful/Down on your knees/Keep on those high-heeled shoes/Rip off all your clothes/You smell so fucking good/It makes me lose control." What. The. Fuck. Did Bullet forget that they had fans and once upon a time wrote good music? Is this even the same band that wrote "Tears Don't Fall"? Did they attend Brokencyde's lyricism class? This song brings up a slew of unanswerable questions, but what it does even more is make the entire album somewhat intolerable for me.
As a whole, Bullet show absolutely no progression on Fever, despite this being their third album. The screamed verses and sung choruses of "Begging for Mercy" sound exactly like half of their established catalog, and lead guitarist Michael Pagat seems to have grown tired of his catchy, well-timed solos and instead decided to just strip down his old ones and loop them into new songs. There are some good riffs on the record and a chorus or two may catch your attention. "Alone" seems to be the standout track with a sweeping introduction and a riff that sounds like it was ripped off from "Waking the Demon" on Scream Aim Fire. The chorus is sing-along-able and the guitar solo is harmonized and completely br00tl. However, the fact that this song is the strongest on the album really just shows how bad of an album this is.
Fans of Bullet for My Valentine will probably not enjoy this album. However, I soberly say that the group will probably get more radio play than ever based on this effort. With their major record label debut, they've strayed into the general direction of shitty music that the entire world has fallen in love with.
Grab your boombox and your CDs and head for the tornado shelter everyone, we have to wait out the storm.
You have to sit back and look at this stuff and wonder what went on during that Major Label meeting when they signed that deal. I mean, they're huge in the UK, and they are well liked over here before that and they've seen what happens to the shit tons of bands that try a major. They have been around the scene longer than we have but they still jumped on and decided to make contrived music for the sake of widespread accessibility.
You have to sit back and look at this stuff and wonder what went on during that Major Label meeting when they signed that deal. I mean, they're huge in the UK, and they are well liked over here before that and they've seen what happens to the shit tons of bands that try a major. They have been around the scene longer than we have but they still jumped on and decided to make contrived music for the sake of widespread accessibility.
I just don't get it, I guess.
I don't think going to a major was the wrong move for them, I think them deciding that this album was good enough to put alongside their catalog was the wrong move.
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