A Must-Listen: "Fever" (2010) by Bullet For My Valentine
After their outstanding success “The Poison”, it was hard to please Bullet For My Valentine fans. It was one of the band's best work according to some of the fans, but a terrible, uninspired album for some. The band settled and properly just wrote an album, for the first time. “The Poison” era was a hard time for the members, as they were just forming the band and trying to adapt to their new career/ lifestyle. “Scream Aim Fire” was another exploration of what the band was really looking for, but at the same time a bit of a disappointment, after their debut album, it wasn’t a well-used chance for the band to show their capability. "Fever" is a better piece of work, showing what the band can actually do.
The band drew back from their metalcore style and took a more classic metal approach in “Fever”. There are some really simple, cheesy tracks like “Your Betrayal” and “Fever”, which was a negative for some, but the band seems pleased with what they came up with. “Your Betrayal” was written in an hour, on the last day the band had in the studio, as the frontman Matt Tuck explains, maybe it wasn’t the best opening track, but still it has great vocals and sounds good, heavy. “A Place Where You Belong” and “Bittersweet Memories” have more going on in the lyrics. “A Place Where You Belong” talks about losing someone you love, not being able to say goodbye, and has a more dynamic structure. “Bittersweet Memories” is about a ruined relationship, and is “the soft side of Bullet”, according to Tuck. Besides, there is “Begging For Mercy” the heavy track of the album, far from “Bittersweet Memories”, and it’s simply about revenge.
"Fever" is Bullet For My Valentine’s 3rd album and the 3rd experimentation of their musical taste and talent. It contains some complex songs like “Pretty On The Outside”, and some really simple structured tracks like the opening track and “Pleasure and Pain”, also Tuck wrote some self-explaining, dark, personal lyrics in most of the songs.