Now listen up people… Bullet For My Valentine are not a Rock band, they are a Metal band with a capital ‘M’ They are sons of Metallica, Grandsons of Maiden and Priest…

THEY also are the FIRST metal band from the UK to headline Arenas this century! So with that in mind, let’s go. Manchester during tea time is a f****n’ nightmare, everyone trying to be somewhere else, most going home! Me? Well I’m slowly making my way to the ‘Evening News Arena’ or M.E.N. as it’s known these days, a huge cavornous space that’s never really been my cup of tea - some bands work it (Linkin Park) some bands don’t…

Tonight’s bill is heading down the highway with opening support act Funeral For A Friend  (I’m stuck in traffic) and on the poster Atreyu are also on the bill? But no-one confirms or denies this and by the time we roll into the venue I couldn’t care less…

As we get to the box office to be told ‘no one’s left you a photo pass’ I simply shrug my shoulders and go in (been let down to many times before to let it bother me anymore). We get to our seats, there’s four people in them, the MEN staff are useless, so I scream at these people that ‘I don’t care where they are meant to sit, just FUCK OFF’ and they do so… We sit down…

Bring Me The Horizon are something of a revelation, they are now bitter, dark and twisted. At Sonisphere in August and when I had seen them previously they were just bitter! There seems to be more of a second vocal, more of a beat than a kick, while synths (yes) and samples seem to puncture their set with interludes and space. Lead singer ‘Oli’ still screams, has a bad attitude and is still mainly the reason you love or hate this band. They now intrigue me for they have become the ‘nu-metal’ band for the Sk8r generation, screamo never sounded like this and more melody enters the equasion than ever before. They are fast becoming one of the most essential rock bands of a generation… Jj* **Phhoto’s: Danni

Album review: 2011: Bring Me the Horizon’s opening gambit, the This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For EP, was an uncommonly good debut. At the beginning of 2005 it left me breathless, and promptly earned itself a near-perfect review.

Fast-forward five years, and they’ve experienced their share of amazing highs and crippling lows. The Sheffield five-piece – metalcore, but not strictly metal to the core – lost a member in 2009 and departing guitarist Curtis Ward was replaced by former Bleeding Through axe-mangler Jona Weinhofen. The fury directed the way of this still young band – Sykes is only 23 – just focused them on refining their music, making it both as brutal as possible but also retaining the crossover appeal that made their first recordings so instantly rewarding. What 2006’s Count Your Blessings lacked in clout, 2008’s Suicide Season made up for. The band’s second album is a bruising experience to this day, and this third LP takes things further still. Recorded in Sweden and California, it’s the group’s most ambitious offering yet, a collection that bites harder than anything they’ve previously issued but which is equally eager to kiss everything better.

F*** is a great example of their accomplished mix of tempestuous noise and cooling comedowns – as Sykes screams bloody murder, You Me at Six’s Josh Franceschi’s backing vocals persuade the subject of the piece to “come a little closer, tell me those three little words”. At its centre, it’s a love song; on the surface, a riotous rant of lust: “Let’s f*** ‘til our hearts give up”. Similarly impressive are Anthem, which pairs holler-along gang vocals with riffs so raw the UK mainstream’s heard nothing so savage since Gallows’ breakthrough debut; Visions, less a call to arms, more a full-blown casus belli; and the 65daysofstatic-style electro-glitch flourishes of opener Crucify Me. And everything’s sequenced fantastically well – this is an album ‘proper’, not a clutch of tracks arranged in an arbitrary order. They’ve not done everything the easy way, but Bring Me the Horizon today stand at the very vanguard of the UK metal scene. This third album takes risks with confidence, and the end results are never less than startling. - Mike Diver