Bring Me the Horizon - Count Your Blessings
Updated: 6 hours ago
On October 30, 2006, "Count Your Blessings", the first studio album by the band "Bring Me the Horizon", was released.
Before they conquered stadiums around the world, before the shiny synthesizers, the Brit Awards, the collaborations with pop stars and becoming the architects of modern rock today, the members of "Bring Me the Horizon" were five brash, skinny and wild boys from Sheffield who wanted to destroy every small and crowded club in the UK. In the mid-2000s, when MySpace was the central battleground of youth culture, vocalist Oli Sykes, guitarists Lee Malia and Curtis Ward, bassist Matt Kean and drummer Matt Nicholls formed around a shared passion for extreme, chaotic and limitless music. From the industrial boredom of northern England and after a mini-debut album that ignited underground hysteria, they entered the studio when they were barely eighteen and nineteen, armed with terrifyingly low-tuned guitars, meticulous emo hairstyles and an attitude that saw polished technique as a mere recommendation over pure youthful fury.
Entering Birmingham's legendary DEP International Studios, the same studios where reggae band UB40 had previously recorded with producer Dan Sprigg, was less like a meticulous studio production and more like a college party gone wild. Lacking adult supervision in the bustling city center, the band members spent their nights drinking heavily and partying, and their days trying to translate their hangovers into a dense sonic assault. Sykes recorded the vocals in a suffocating, isolated cubicle, his voice ranging from raspy black metal screams to guttural growls, while Malia and Ward fused melodic death metal riffs from the Swedish school of "At the Gates" and "In Flames" into brutal American hardcore breakdowns.
The result was an album that instantly divided the global metal community. While veteran gatekeepers and hardened critics were appalled by the combination of a young fashion aesthetic and brutally cutting-edge music, an entire generation of teenagers found in "Count Your Blessings" the perfect soundtrack to their rebellion. The band even won Kerrang! magazine's Best Debut Band award in 2006, a move that only fanned the flames of debate over whether it was raw genius or loud provocation.
(Photo: MCK-photography)
The album opens without warning with the band's undisputed deathcore anthem, "Pray for Plagues." From the moment Sykes' first scream pierces the air over Nichols' murderous double-bass drumming, the song functions as a rollercoaster of honed riffs, frantic tempo changes, and one of the most famous and violent breakdowns in 2000s metal history. The line from the song that gave the album its name became a battle cry at live shows, where walls of death and pogo circles were commonplace.
Immediately after it, "Tell Slater Not to Wash His Dick" storms in, a song that proves that alongside the extreme aggression, the band relied on wild youthful humor borrowed from pop culture and the cult series Saved by the Bell. Underneath the scandalous title lies a wonderfully technical and complex section, in which Malia and Ward's guitars weave spiky spiral melodies before the song plunges into a crushing rhythmic abyss. The third track, "For Stevie Wonder's Eyes Only", also known by its short name "Braille", continues the uncompromising line with a dizzying drum attack and vocals that sound as if Sykes' vocal cords are about to rupture at any second, while combining a heavy groove that forces your head to move uncontrollably.
The crazy pace doesn't let up on "A Lot Like Vegas", a short, chaotic, dizzying two-minute outburst that feels like a spectacular musical chain reaction, and from there the album moves on to "Black & Blue". This is one of the most cohesive and chaotic pieces on the album, a song that combines a dark and gloomy atmosphere with sawing riffs that demonstrate how Lee Malia, a die-hard fan of classic thrash and metal bands, managed to implant sophisticated melodic motifs within an envelope of utter destruction. After a brief break in the form of the instrumental piece "Slow Dance", the band returns to pounding hard with "Liquor & Love Lost", a song that accurately documents the hedonistic and drunken lifestyle of the band members during their recording days in Birmingham.
The second half's melodic, epic climax comes on the eighth track, "Medusa", originally called by its full and cynical title "I Used to Make Out With Medusa". Over nearly six minutes of bloody tragedy, the band delivers one of their most brilliant guitar moments of that decade, with double harmonies reminiscent of Gothenburg's golden age, a melodic and moving guitar solo by Malia, and a slow, suffocating breakdown that closes the song with bone-crushing intensity.
Just before the stormy end, the band surprises with "Fifteen Fathoms, Counting", a delicate, dreamy, and beautiful two-minute acoustic instrumental piece played with clean guitars and floating effects. The sharp transition between this heavenly tranquility and the long, brutal closing track "Off the Heezay" is an editorial highlight that emphasizes the album's extremity. The closing song pours out everything left in the quintet's arsenal, with racing riffs, cries of despair, and a heavy final minute that leaves the listener exhausted and breathless.
In 2026, the band revisited its debut with the re-recorded "Count Your Blessings Repented", released on July 10. Oli Sykes and Lee Malia led the process alongside Buster Odeholm. This twentieth-anniversary recording also includes the new song "Dehumanized".
Standing the test of time, "Count Your Blessings" is much more than a wild youthful documentary or a historical footnote. It's a monument of pure British bravado, an album in which five boys refused to obey the rules of the genre, bridged opposing ends of the heavy music world, and ignited an entire movement that transformed them from the UK's most reviled underdogs to the undisputed kings of modern rock.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
"Face/Off" - Israel's Rock Blog
Comments