“I feel so proud of what we’ve achieved as a band in the last two decades, and it all started with that debut album”: Bullet For My Valentine to release 20th anniversary edition of The Poison, featuring bonus songs and Live At Brixton album

Bullet For My Valentine have announced a 20th-anniversary re-release of The Poison.

The Welsh metalcore stars will put out 4LP and 2CD reissues of their beloved debut album on November 29. Both sets include the record with its original bonus tracks, as well as the band’s 2006 live album Live At Brixton.

The 4LP edition also comes with a copy of Bullet For My Valentine’s 2005 EP Hand Of Blood. It’s part of a boxset that comes with new artwork, a coffee table book, a pin badge, a bandana, a replica AAA pass and other goodies.

A standard 1LP vinyl version, featuring the track listing of the original album, will also be available.

Bullet For My Valentine singer/guitarist Matt Tuck comments: “I honestly can’t believe it’s been 20 years since the release of The Poison, and what an incredible 20 years it’s been.

“I feel so proud of what we’ve achieved as a band in the last two decades and it all started with that debut album. The Poison is such an important part of our lives musically and personally and we know the massive impact it had on the metal world on a global level.”

Bullet For My Valentine released The Poison to positive reviews on October 3, 2005. It reached number one on the UK Rock & Metal chart and number 21 on the overall UK Albums chart, as well as number 128 on the US’s Billboard 200.

The album spawned the single Tears Don’t Fall, the music video for which became a mainstay on music television channels. On Spotify, the song is Bullet For My Valentine’s most listened-to, boasting upwards of 338 million streams at time of publication. It’s also the band’s most-played song live, according to setlist wiki setlist.fm.

The Poison has been certified Platinum in Germany and Gold in both the UK and US. Metal Hammer named it the 17th-best metal albums of the 2000s in 2023.

The magazine wrote: “The Poison owes more to the post-hardcore stylings of fellow Welshmen Funeral For A Friend than to Converge or [Killswitch Engage], but the intoxicating mix of raw emotion, sweeping riffs and undeniable hooks made Bullet feel like champions from the off, the defiant roar of Her Voice Resides signalling that the US’s dominance of metalcore wouldn’t go as uncontested as it had for nu metal.”

Bullet For My Valentine will continue celebrating 20 years of The Poison on a co-headline world tour with Trivium next year. The band will play The Poison in full, and Trivium will do the same for their own lauded 2005 album, Ascendancy. See the list of announced dates below.

Bullet For My Valentine / Trivium 2025 tour dates:

Jan 26: Cardiff Utilita Arena 
Jan 27: Cardiff Utilita Arena
Jan 28: Glasgow OVO Hydro
Jan 30: Manchester Co-op Live 
Jan 31: Birmingham Utilita Arena  
Feb 1: London The O2

Feb 2: Düsseldorf Mitsubishi Electric Hall, Germany
Feb 4: Stuttgart Scheleyer-Hall, Germany
Feb 5: Zurich The Hall, Switzerland
Feb 7: Paris Le Zenith, France
Feb 9: Antwerp Lotto Arena, Belgium
Feb 10: Hannover Swiss Life Hall, Germany
Feb 11: Amsterdam AFAS Live, Netherlands
Feb 13: Hamburg Sporthalle, Germany
Feb 14: Berlin Max-Schmeling-Halle, Germany
Feb 15: Frankfurt Jahrhunderthalle, Germany
Feb 17: Milan Alcatraz, Italy
Feb 18: Munich Zenith, Germany
Feb 19: Vienna Stadthalle, Austria
Feb 21: Gliwice Arena, Poland
Feb 22: Prague Forum Karlin, Czechia
Feb 23: Luxembourg Rockhal, Luxembourg
Feb 26: Lisbon Campo Pequeno, Portugal
Feb 27: Madrid Vistalegre, Spain

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.