Bullet For My Valentine – Scream Aim Fire

The long awaited follow-up to the Welsh quartet’s debut ‘The Poison’, is unashamed old school metal with nu-school production. Already flying high in the US Billboard chart, Bullet have well and truly arrived and are the possible successors to the mighty Iron Maiden.

British metal has struggled to impact on the global scene, so hat’s off to these friendly rockers for getting there. I saw Bullet in a small venue a year or so ago and the hysteria in the crowd as they waited for their Welsh dragons to take the stage was unforgettable - it was if The Beatles were about to run on. So there is do doubting their loyal fan base and their already proven metal credentials.

Overview!

So what is Scream Aim Fire like? Well, it’s not as good as their debut. It’s not as fresh or exciting. It is formula metal to the tee, but perfect for a willing audience.
It’s all been done before but of course 20 year old metal-heads don’t know or care about that. The production is crystal, as it must be these days, the songs are strong but somehow obvious. There’s less growling which will help mainstream sales but it’s not very progressive and I know of a number of young UK bands that would give their left nut to be in Bullet’s position and take full advantage of the musical opportunity. ‘Disappear’ is a great track but the ‘riff come crowd chant’ moment was ironically not only done by every 80’s hair band, but by Trivium and Machine Head in the last year (and looked what happened to the hair bands…).

Conclusion

I am being picky and this is very good metal. Not enough vibrato for my liking but still will ensure Bullet’s place at the top of the metal tree which they still deserve thanks to ‘The Poison’.