With “Hearts Burst Into Fire”, the second single from their latest album Scream Aim Fire, Bullet For My Valentine are set to secure their status as the ultimate radio-friendly blend of old-school thrash instrumentation and emo songwriting.
If anyone ever makes an audio dictionary, the definition of “anthemic” will simply have “Hearts Burst Into Fire” playing on a loop. Say what you like about Bullet For My Valentine, they know how to push the right switches with melodies and hooks that stick straight into your brain whether you want them to or not.
The problem is that there are plenty of people who would gladly live without Bullet For My Valentine providing earworms of this calibre, and I include myself among them. “Hearts Burst Into Fire” is a distillation of everything current in rock music rightfuckinnow, from its emotional overstatement and cloying sentiment to its shameless appropriation of the Bay Area thrash sound filtered through the day-glo colours and animated gifs of MySpace. It does nothing for me at an emotional level.
“Hearts Burst Into Fire” isn’t bad. Far from it – it’s great as what it is. But it’s a pop record, pure and simple; no amount of mosh-pit trappings can alter that fact.
That said, I’d rather have pop like Bullet For My Valentine on the radio than most of the other crap that’s out there right now. And we can be certain of one thing – the inclusion of the acoustic version as the B-side pretty much guarantees that awkward teenagers with aspirations of rockstardom will be putting badly-recorded versions of “Hearts Burst Into Fire” on their MySpace pages next time they want to express themselves to the young lady in their life.
And as short-term immortality goes, I don’t think Bullet For My Valentine could ask for much more than that.
I’m still curious about these multiple hearts, though.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: Bullet For My Valentine, Hearts Burst Into Fire, metal, metalcore, pop, thrash
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
ok man idk who u r or who u think u r
but do us all a favor n stop bein a faggot n replacing the pictures with that stupid message
no one gives a rats ass about ur bandwith so chill out
if thats really what u worry about in life in stead of what normal people worry about like your health or your family then u need to stand in front of a mirror, look yourself in the face and say:
“what’s wrong with me?”
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
and by the way
no one cares about your oppinion on b4mv either
theyre way better musicians than you could ever hope 2 be so dont get ur panties in a bunch when they release and “anthemish” song
its called strategy and its to get more publicity
not for people like you to go and insult their music.
get a life you fucking drone.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
and scream aim and fire may not be as good as the poison was but its a fucking awesome album so get over yourself because no one cares
July 24th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Of course - you care so little that you’ve left three comments, just to show me how little you care. Your criticisms of me would be a lot more cutting if you could actually communicate in coherent English. Isn’t it time to head back to the job at 7-11?
July 27th, 2008 at 2:54 am
ok sorry im not from the uk you fucking dick
im sorry i dont feel like typing proper language and being all british up the ass sophisticated
shut the fuck up man
oh and by the way im a guitar and drum teacher and i make $34 an hour for it
im also only 16 so i dont give a fuck if i have a high paying career at the moment
so forgive me that i don’t exactly agree with your stuck up opinion that you feel it necessary to flaunt all over the internet so people will hopefully read it and notice you.
ok granted i may have gone a bit overboard with the comments but come on man you wrote an entire article about hearts burst into fire
and yeah its “anthemic” but who gives a shit
would you rather be the musician not giving a fuck about publicity rotting in the back of a van or the musician who has a huge commercial hit and makes money? Once again strategy. and even though bands like fall out boy and panic at the disco are all commercial but they suck and have no talent whatsoever as opposed to b4mv who are fucking insane so seriously man just stop writing shit about music that you could never write yourself.
July 27th, 2008 at 2:56 am
oh and if you hate b4mv so much then tell me why you get all menstral when people post the picture up on their pages?
July 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I really think you need to calm down a bit, my friend. I wrote a bad review of a band you like; as you say, it will probably make no difference to their career whatsoever. I have as much right to write a review as you have to respond to it. Get over it.
And what you describe as “getting menstral” about the reposting of images is an automatic script that prevents a practice referred to as hotlinking. If you don’t love B4MV enough to learn how to right-click on an image and download it to your own machine before uploading it to your fansite or whatever, then I’m afraid that’s tough shit for you.
Next time you fancy debating someone’s opinion about a band you like, I might suggest that insulting the other person directly isn’t a very effective tactic. It draws attention away from your opinion, and focuses it on your poor communication skills and your essentially hypocritical argument, which effectively boils down to “well, I think differently, so therefore you’re wrong and I can insult you using racist, homophobic and sexist language, because that’s how little I care about your opinion”. Way to go, Hemingway.
August 10th, 2008 at 5:32 am
fckng fggts
ok the british dude, sorry wer not all computer wiz kids
but no one cares if sum1 has bad communication skills
and btw dont use the word fancy dude its lame as shit
August 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
So it’s lame to criticise someone for their communication skills, but then you just go ahead and do it anyway. Right on, “dude”.
I’ll use whatever words I like on my own website whenever I fancy it, thanks. Annoying teenagers with attitude problems in the process is an added bonus.