Bullet For My Valentine having a number one album would be great... even though I won't be buying it

It's been a while since I wrote anything, largely because I haven't had much to say, and I'm firmly of the opinion that if you don't have anything meaningful to contribute, you should keep your trap shut. But something has come up this week which I feel is worth talking about- the release of Fever, the new album from Bridgend's biggest export Bullet For My Valentine.

I genuinely want Fever to become a number one album. I want it to sell many copies and for kids everywhere to discover Bullet and get into them in a big way. Clear? Right, now the morons who write them off as "not metal" have fucked off in a fit of apoplexy and are constructing voodoo dolls of me (complete with Kamelot t-shirt) to extract retribution on my failings as a metal fan (I'm quite sure none of whom have even heard of Viatrophy, let alone tried to support them or other new British practitioners of the exxxxxtreme metal they claim is the only valid form of music) let me explain why.

Contrary to what you may think, I wasn't born into a Slayer babygrow, placed in a Possessed crib and raised on a steady diet of Kreator and Death. As much as many of us try and sound credible by claiming we've always listened to extreme music, it's utter bollocks. Very few (if any) of our parents liked metal (Joan Baez and Berlioz were more my folks' scene), it wasn't on the TV shows we watched when we were very young and it is hardly the sort of thing taught to kids as essential listening material. You have to discover it. While some doubtlessly come across genuine metal directly at a very young age, many more slide into it gradually, and pretty much all of us can remember who our first metal band was. Mine was Fear Factory (weird, I know, and a story for another time) but there is more to it than that.

I have a vague memory of being played Pantera and Metallica in my first year in secondary school and writing it off as noisy old shit (give me a break, I was 11). You'd probably expect me to be a tad ashamed of that fact, but the reality was I had heard nothing heavier at that time than Oasis and Blur (who were the first bands I bought records by) and given the steady diet of 60s folk pop and classical music I was weaned on, at the time it felt aggressive, dangerous and rebellious. The jump from Parklife to Creeping Death is more than I could cope with, and I suspect that is not something unique to me.

Over the next few years I drifted through some alternative rock (Placebo and Garbage were big bands to me) before hearing- and going frankly apeshit for- Nirvana and Green Day. If you haven't noticed, everything I've listened to genuinely is NOT metal- but it IS heavy music, albeit at the softer end. After a few more punk bands (Rancid and Bad Religion in particular) I finally heard Fear Factory, fell in love with them and began to explore the fiendish, frightening subterranean realm of heavy metal. And this is the crux of my point.

Everyone has to take a first step into heavy music, and the right amount of heaviness is needed at the right time. If I had heard Fear Factory without going through alt rock and pop punk it would have been too much. But having heard that, it was exactly heavy enough to grab me, in a way I suspect Iron Maiden wouldn't- it wasn't the right time for me to hear them. I wanted crushing and furious, not tuneful and melodic. And this is the exact thing Bullet can do- they can be the right band at the right time for a legion of teenagers for whom Trivium would be too much and Fall Out Boy not enough. Bullet For My Valentine can introduce the next generation to metal- and let us not forget that we, as fans, are dependent on that generation for future music. Fever reaching number one in the album charts will get the exposure metal needs if it is to snare the next generations of Steve Harrises, and I would be genuinely delighted if that happened- a giant leap for metalkind would have been taken in the direction of the future.

I'm not saying I like Bullet For My Valentine- I don't despise them, but their riffs bore the arse off me, and my tastes are so dependent on instrumental parts that they've largely had it from then on as far as I'm concerned. I have listened to Fever, and while it's easily the best thing they've done, it's not for me. I will not be berating those who buy it and love it (although I will be laughing at their wrongness if they make it their album of the year, just as they will laugh at my wrongness whoever I put there). It does highlight a point I've made before, however.

Most "way in" bands are those like Maiden, Metallica and Pantera, and although it is grossly unfair to compare anyone to those bands, the fact that they are all-time greats is inescapable, as is the fact that Bullet are not even close. The inconvenient truth is that the most accessible end of the metal market is arguably the weakest, both in Britain and abroad. While the rock and punk genres have some genuine classics coming out at that end of the heaviness scale, our best records are either much heavier (Machine Head & Lamb Of God, for example), much more niche (any power metal), extremely difficult to get into (eg Mastodon or Dream Theater) or a combination of the above (Opeth). We are crying out for a band capable of being accessible- both in terms of heaviness and complexity- and highest quality. I've said that Five Finger Death Punch might be one of the biggest bands of the next decade, but I suspect even they are a tad abrasive for someone used to Razorlight.

The reality is that Bullet For My Valentine are the best band who sit in the demilitarised zone (where blast beats are banned) between the mainstream and our world. And whether you like it or not, aesthetics are always going to play a part, and the band have that going for them. Girls are going to fancy Matt and boys are going to think he's cool and want to be him (as long as they don't see the golf jumper video) just as I did when I first saw James Hetfield in my early days as a metal fan. I still have hopes for Black Tide to deliver a record of sufficient quality while still having mainstream appeal, but until they do, we need Bullet- like it or not.

I'll tell you one thing- you've got to whisper it though. If you say it too loud the trolls will ruin it for us. You think those boys are our only hope? No. There is another...

Mutiny Within...