On ‘The Poison’, Bullet For My Valentine capitalized on metalcore’s popularity with a huge debut album

The decline of nu-metal in the early 2000s directly led to the expanding commercial appeal of metalcore. Bands like God Forbid, Shadows Fall, and Atreyu were still able to move hundreds of thousands of copies of their albums, and labels like Trustkill and Ferret were on the way up.

Among the many influential popular albums of the time, though, many stand out. And we’re not sure there are many more albums from the era loved as much as Bullet For My Valentine’s The Poison. The album, released on October 3, 2005 in the UK (and ironically, on Valentine’s Day 2006 in the USA) was one of the biggest releases in the Trustkill catalogue. Combining riff-heavy metal influenced by the greats that came before, the album also contained plenty of moshpit-ready breakdowns and clean singing that garnered the band plenty of attention out of the gate. Clearly an influence on bands like Asking Alexandria, this album is certainly one of the more memorable of the period. The best song here? Probably megahit “Tears Don’t Fall” or maybe “Room 409”. There’s also the huge riffs and solos in the thrash-influenced “4 Words To Choke Upon”, which really stands out.

Also fun fact? “Tears Don’t Fall” is one of the biggest metalcore songs on Spotify, with a staggering 264 million streams as of Valentine’s Day 2023. Truly wild! What a huge hit that song was, though. While a few other songs in their catalogue can be argued to be the band’s signature song (including a few on this record), there’s no doubt the accessibility of the track (and the fact that even the song’s title connected with emo kids everywhere) helped the band’s popularity explode. Something that not many people touch on is the fact that Bullet For My Valentine smartly structured their songs in a palatable fashion. Outside of “Tears Don’t Fall” and “The End”, all tracks clock in under 4:07 – putting to rest the problem of heavier forms of metal sometimes not being accessible to outside audiences.

It’s hard to quantify just how big this record was in the scene. With multiple albums under their belts now, The Poison is proving tough to top. And why not? It hit at just the right moment in the scene, and while the band’s newer albums might not be on this level, The Poison is still a fun album to listen to – because it’s memorable.