Review: Bullet For My Valentine- Temper Temper

Hey guys! Sorry this review is late I really wanted to take my time with this album, but I found some time today and I figured I'd sit down and give my review for Bullet For My Valentine's latest release, Temper Temper.  

I will admit when I first heard Bullet For My Valentine's last release Fever, I did not have a favorable reaction to it, I thought that the songs that were good like "Your Betrayal" and "The Last Fight", but overall the album was not one of my favorites from the band.  But I gave the album some time and I found the more and more I returned to it the more and more my opinion on Fever changed and now I actually really enjoy the album.  I kept that experience in the back of my mind when I took my first dive into their newest release Temper Temper.  

The first time I heard anything about this album was when I saw a tweet from Loudwire that Bullet had released a new single for their upcoming album.  That single happened to be the title track to the album.  At first I had mixed feelings for it, the song started off good, but the version I heard had really annoying clean vocals on the chorus.  "What happened to Matt's voice?" I thought "This does not sound good for the rest of the album."  My opinion on that song quickly changed when I saw the video for it, they had replaced whatever clean vocals I heard on that first version with rougher vocals that fit the song more.  That version renewed my faith in this album.

The next single I heard was the simple and catchy song "Riot", my first thought when I saw the video was "Where did all of Matt Tuck's hair go?" Needless to say I am not a huge fan of his decision to cut it.  But I really did enjoy the song "Riot", it brought me back memories of the Bullet For My Valentine that we heard on The Poison that we all know and love, it even included a ripping solo by Padge.  With the strength of these two singles I was excited to go pick up this album to see what the the rest of Temper Temper had in store for me.

Without even listening to the album my first observation was "Kick ass album cover!" I love the outstretched bloody hands, it totally beats that weird crab girl they had on Fever and is probably my favorite next to the cover of The Poison.

After my first listen to Temper Temper I was left with the same feeling that Fever left me with, but I had a hunch this would happen so I gave the album more time.  On the subsequent listens that followed I did not feel my opinion on the album changing.  So I decided to do a comparison listen.  I listened to Fever immediately followed by Temper Temper, yet my feeling about this album did not change that much.

Temper Temper is by no means a bad album.  Songs like the title track, "Riot, "Breaking Point", "Saints & Sinners" and "Livin' Life (On the Edge of a Knife)" are catchy and pack that classic Bullet For My Valentine punch that fans have come to know and love.  Songs such as "Truth Hurts", "Leech" and "P.O.W." definitely took me some time to get used to and songs such as "Dead to the World" and "Tears Don't Fall (pt. 2)" in my opinion should not be on the album.  I think I understand where they were trying to go with "Tears Don't Fall (pt. 2)",  the song would bring back nostalgia from the first album and bring a smile to fan's faces, but in all honesty it made me upset, and if anything made me want to listen to the first (and really only) "Tears Don't Fall" to remind myself of how awesome that song is and pretend this "pt. 2" just never happened.

Is Temper Temper better than Fever? No, is it better than The Poison or Scream Aim Fire? No.  While it does have some misses on it, the hits are good enough to make up for the misses and keep fans of the band happy but are still not as good as the previous three albums.  And who knows? Maybe as I give this album more time, it will grow on me the same way Fever did.  Also if you can I recommend picking up the "deluxe version" the bonus track "Not Invincible" is awesome and their cover of "Whole Lotta Rosie" is fantastic as well.

Overall Rating 6.5/10

Thanks guys!
-Zach

PS if there is an album you want me to review, or an artist you want me to talk about tweet me @zachktheanimal or leave a comment below.