Both acts have proven to be rock music torchbearers for a generation
Last night, modern metal juggernauts Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium tore through blistering sets in Boston at MGM Music Hall. The capacity crowd showed up in a big way to help the bands celebrate the 20th anniversaries of two seminal albums – Bullet For My Valentine’s debut LP The Poison and Trivium’s breakthrough sophomore effort Ascendency. This run has been packing big rooms across Europe and North America, and it serves as concrete evidence that both acts are deserving of bigger things. With storied acts like Metallica and Iron Maiden in their twilight, bands like Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium have long been proving that they have what it takes to be their generation’s festival headliners. As major festivals like Download, Hellfest, Sonic Temple, and more find themselves searching for new acts to top their bills, they should look no further than these two heavy metal torchbearers.
Trivium’s critically acclaimed tenth album, In The Court Of The Dragon, arrived in 2021. The band and album were praised by and featured in mainstream outlets like The New York Times, NPR, Forbes, Billboard, TechCrunch, and Kotaku, as well as Guitar World, Revolver, Alternative Press, and more. They released the now-canonical album Ascendancy in 2005. It was recognized as Kerrang!’s “Album of the Year,” achieved a gold certification in the UK, and eclipsed sales of 500,000 worldwide. Metal Hammer placed it in the Top 15 of “The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the 21st Century.” It ignited a string of six consecutive Top 25 debuts on the Billboard Top 200 and five straight Top 3 debuts on the Top Hard Rock Albums Chart, culminating on 2017’s benchmark The Sin And The Sentence. That album elevated the group’s total stream tally past a quarter-of-a-billion. Additionally, “Betrayer” received a GRAMMY® Award nomination in the category of “Best Metal Performance.”
Bullet For My Valentine has been a mainstay, not just in the metal community, but within British music as a whole since their inception. From experiencing early success with Fever and Scream Aim Fire to continuing to encapsulate audiences with Gravity and 2021’s self-titled album, the band has consistently gone from strength to strength, amassing over 3.5 million album sales to date whilst playing sold-out shows across the globe. It’s the band’s first album, however; 2005’s The Poison, that propelled them to unimaginable heights. That year saw the Welsh metallers graduate from supporting Funeral For A Friend on their UK run in the summer, ending the year headlining the very same venues just months later.
Dropping in October 2005, The Poison hit No. 21 in the UK album charts, becoming a late contender in end of year polls, placing at number seven on Kerrang!’s “Albums Of The Year” list, and since achieving gold status. Therefore in 2025, Bullet will be celebrating 20 years of The Poison by partnering with fellow heavy metal contemporaries Trivium and bringing The Poisoned Ascendancy Tour to life, where both acts will perform their iconic debut albums, playing them in full for the last time to audiences worldwide.
