'Bullet For My Valentine', 'Tesseract' and 'Bleed From Within' - Edinburgh Corn Exchange 1st November 2021.

Tesseract were next to take the stage. Their mix of progressive metal and ambient music provided a nice change of pace to the night. They played a set including djent classic ‘Of Mind – Nocturne’ and the extremely proggy ‘Concealing Fate’ tracks. The band were met with a sea of audience members nodding their heads in time with the band (or at least attempting to with all the time changes and complex drumbeats). Songs like ‘Orbital’ and ‘Juno’ showed just how talented the band are with catchy guitar riffs, funky slap bass sections and frontman Dan’s impressive vocal range. The band made use of a brilliant light show to create a very visual performance coupled with Dan’s stage movements to draw the audience into the performance. All in all, they put on a great set and I look forward to the next time Tesseract bring their atmospheric prog metal back to Scotland.

Bullet For My Valentine kicked off their set with new track ‘Parasite’. This was a perfect song to open with considering it’s one of the fastest and heaviest of their new tracks. The sound was clear and the whole band sounded on top form. For the next hour and a half the band took us on a riff filled tour down memory lane with tracks like ‘4 Words (To Choke Upon)’ and ‘Scream Aim Fire’, staples of a Bullet set. The band also played hits from their later albums including ‘Worthless’ and ‘Over It’, using the choruses to encourage the crowd to get moving and interacting with the band. I was very surprised when the band suddenly played the solo from ‘Take It Out On Me’ in the middle of the set. I have seen Bullet live many times and have never seen them perform any part of this track live. This was one of the highlights of the set for me personally. The guitars sounded extremely clear even with heavy distortion as Matt and Padge played the solo, harmonising with each other. Add to this the extra bass solo played at the start of the track and an incredibly tight drummer and you have a recipe for success. This was the first gig I had attended since March 2020 and it was a relief to hear such a great mix coming from the soundboard. Every instrument had its space in the mix and none of the band members ever had to compete with each other to be heard. At one point the band played ‘The Last Fight’ but with an extended intro of only Matt Tuck and his guitar. He had been interacting with us as an audience throughout the set but during this he managed to get the entire venue to sing the verse for him. This is why Bullet work so well in a live setting, they get everyone involved in the performance. The band treated us to the other 3 singles from the new album which releases on Friday. ‘Knives’ and ‘Shatter’ show just how heavy a direction the band are taking this new album with their low tuned riffs and hard-hitting pantera-esque drum grooves. Seriously these tracks would not sound out of place on a 90s groove metal album. ‘Rainbow Veins’ slotted in nicely towards the end of the set, with its singalong chorus being chanted throughout the venue. Of course, no Bullet For My Valentine gig would be complete without the classics and the band returned for an encore of ‘Tears Don’t Fall’ followed by ‘Waking The Demon’ complete with mosh pits, crowd participation and once again amazing guitar solos. This went down a storm and led to frantic chants for another encore. Unfortunately, we had already reached the curfew for the venue but it didn’t matter because Bullet had just proved once again why they remain at the top of their game within the metal scene. They give the crowd exactly what they want: a fast, incredibly heavy interactive metal show. I’m always impressed with how close this band sound to their albums in a live performance.

Bullet For My Valentine release their new self-titled album this Friday the 5th of November. Catch them live on tour if you can because they put on a fantastic show.