Following up 2013’s largely hopeless Temper Temper was never going to be easy for Bullet for My Valentine. Widely – if somewhat erroneously – viewed as standard-bearers for mainstream UK metal, the Welsh quartet have sensibly returned to the sound that made them such a slick and inoffensive gateway into the metal world for sulky teenagers a decade ago. It would be a little generous to say that Venom repairs all of the damage caused by that laughable Riot video from two years ago, but it does at least suggest that frontman Matt Tuck has embraced heavy metal in its bombastic entirety again. Unfortunately, the things that have always turned diehard metal fans off this band are still present: the hackneyed, angsty lyrics (increasingly unbefitting of a man Tuck’s age) and the shamelessly generic pop-rock choruses, which consistently set off the false-metal alarm. Where Venom does succeed is in the ferocity of its heavier moments, which while seldom straying from entry-level metalcore and thrash cliches, do at least sound like the work of a band who like metal enough to stop ruining it.
