There’s a strong case to be made for Bullet For My Valentine’s sophomore album Scream Aim Fire as arguably the most-anticipated sophomore album from any metalcore band of the 2000s. At the very least, it’s certainly up there with the likes of Killswitch Engage’s The End Of Heartache, Poison The Well’s Tear From The Red, or perhaps even Trivium’s Ascendancy. Allow us to explain.
Bullet For My Valentine had exploded onto the scene with their 2005 debut full-length The Poison. Arriving as metalcore had already emerged as another sub-genre that labels were throwing cash at, it certainly benefited BFMV to have songs as huge as “Tears Don’t Fall”, “Room 409”, and previously-released “4 Words (To Choke Upon)”. These songs blended radio-friendly melodic choruses with all the trappings of melodic metalcore at the time, and also included some clear thrash metal influences, and as hype around the album continued to accelerate, the question became this: how would they repeat it?
Released on January 28th, 2008, Scream Aim Fire ended up cementing their worldwide audience, reaching a staggering #4 on the Billboard 200. It went Gold in Australia, the UK, and Germany as well. Anchored by “Waking The Demon” and the title track, Scream Aim Fire incorporated more thrash influences but also less screaming, ensuring it would be a hit. While perhaps not reaching the heights of its predecessor from a musical perspective, Scream Aim Fire did its job by taking a few chances (“Take It Out On Me” featured Skindred’s Benji Webbe, by the way), adding a power ballad (“Hearts Burst Into Fire”), and keeping everything that worked on The Poison.
