BMTH - Sempiternal

"Sempiternal" is an archaic English word meaning "everlasting time.” Fittingly, Bring Me the Horizon’s fourth studio album “Sempiternal” is a timeless, trendsetting album that showcases just how artistic and talented BMTH are as a band. It’s fair to say the album is on theme with its title. Between recently going viral on TikTok and with the unforgettable “Sandpit Turtle” memes, it still holds the attention of many. The 10th anniversary of the album’s release was on April 1st, so it’d be foolish to not take a deeper look into the album that for many, put BMTH on the map when it comes to modern metal. Upon first listen, it’s not hard to notice that it’s their first album under a major record label (Sony.) The production value is through the roof. BMTH’s vocalist and primary lyricist, Oli Sykes, said that he had doubts about how joining Sony would affect their sound. Ironically, it’s their first album to produce a major radio hit with their first single, “Shadow Moses.” As a longtime fan, it was shocking to hear my favorite deathcore “scene” band on the radio. Granted their time as a deathcore band had already passed long ago at that point. Don’t get me started, it’s an inevitable topic for a future blog post. Admittedly, “Sempiternal” is not my favorite album of theirs, but there’s no denying the impact this album made on the music world. It’s definitely some of their more accessible music, making it incredibly easy to recommend multiple tracks off of the record. It’d be a sin to not start off with “Can You Feel My Heart” (CYFMH) for short. Currently sitting at 160 million views on Youtube, it's their most popular song of all time. CYFMH going viral on TikTok kickstarted a whole new wave of BMTH fans years after initial release, which is just another contributor to why this may be considered their most defining work.

“Sleepwalking” is my personal favorite, but the songs on the album are truly all so consistently good in their own right that it’s hard to pick one over the other. The slowest song on the album, “And the Snakes Start to Sing,” is an unforgettable one personally because it was the first time Oli’s clean vocals were the prominent feature of a song. He had sneaked in snippets of singing previously, but I vividly remember being so thrown off by this track (in a good way.)

With three highly successful full length albums and over 8 years of history behind them, you’d usually think a band had already found their defining sound. BMTH somehow continued their trend of changing their genre every album by truly redefining themselves with “Sempiternal.” They are, and have always been one of the hardest bands in the world to label. I feel it’s a disservice for me to call this a metalcore album, but it’s no stretch to say this may be the best “metalcore” album of all time.

This is Sandpit Turtle Sempiternal.

Stephen Patrick Morrison is a resident of Russellville, an avid gamer, competitive Pokémon player, and purveyor of all things heavy.

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