I have been a fan of Bullet For My Valentine for some time and was therefore very pleased to be given their new album, Scream Aim Fire, to review.  They are in the enviable position of having had a successful debut, which shifted over a million copies, but are now faced with the daunting task of following such a feat, with many haters sitting in the wings watching and waiting for them to fail. 

The album starts with the first single, and title track, “Scream Aim Fire”.  While, in my opinion, not the best song on the album I can fully understand why this was chosen for the first single, it has been well over two years since they released The Poison, and I personally think that “Scream Aim Fire” is one of the songs that is most recognisable as being BFMV. 

The album as a whole is a mixture of styles while also keeping firmly within the BFMV sound.  The opendisc format of the CD gives access to videos, interviews and such like, with one interview having the band giving a track by track account of the album.  In this they describe how some of the songs have become that bit more thrashy and they also mention that some have an arena feel to them.  This I think shows where they are going with this album, they clearly have ambition and a lot of the songs have more than a hint of being crowd pleasers.  There are clapping moments on several songs, most noticeably on the outro of the final track, “Forever And Always”, while “Deliver Us From Evil” has parts that live I am sure will have people singing, and “Disappear” gives fist pumping sing-a-long moments of ‘hey, hey’.   

As they play a style of metal that is in the same genre as Metallica the comparison will always be made, and there are similarities on numerous songs, including “Scream Aim Fire” and “Eye Of The Storm”.  In fact some of the material sounds more like Trivium, for example “Waking The Demon”, rather than Metallica. 

The surprise of the album is, however, how a lot of the music appears to be influenced by the late 80’s and early 90’s sound of the big rock and metal bands, which links in with the arena sound that they mention.  Ozzy springs to mind on a couple of songs, especially “Hearts Burst Into Fire”, which is going to be their new single, and I urge people to check this out because not only is it a very good song, but it also demonstrates nicely the kind of sound that they are producing on the album. 

“Say Goodnight” is another slower more melodic ballad, that makes me think of Testament’s “Return To Serenity”, not a bad thing at all, and this again shows that they are more than willing to slow things down for the new album.  Vocally Matt Tuck’s voice sounds more suited to some of this material than it was on The Poison, and you cannot help but wonder whether this was done deliberately given the voice and throat problems that have plagued him over the last couple of years. 

I can make comparisons to their music all day but it does not really answer the most important question of all: Is it any good?  Well, yes it is, there are some superb songs here which help the album tick over brilliantly, such as “Take It Out On Me”, which features and was also co-written by Benji Webbe from Skindred.  They will probably get bad press for the album with people no doubt saying the words ‘sold out’, ‘emo’ and ‘not metal’, but you have to ask what these people want the band to produce.  I was pleasantly surprised by the album and I feel that it is a step up from The Poison and it continues to set the foundations for a long career for the band.