Bullet For My Valentine are wrapping up work on their sixth album. Based on a few songs that Loudwire heard, and from our conversation with the band, they're shooting to headline the arenas that their influences like Metallica and Iron Maiden have been playing for decades.

Loudwire correspondent Caity Babcock met up with the band yesterday (Feb. 21) in Los Angeles, and listened to five songs from the upcoming album. "They are big and loud," she reports. "They were very melodic and industrial, and very intensely heavy."

Frontman Matt Tuck describes the album as a definite progression: "It's a step in a more contemporary direction, musically. We kind of focused on the songs as a whole, and the weight of the song. rather than the technicality and the speed. I think we wanted to do something that was bringing the band more into a 2018 vibe. We didn't want to write a normal, stock, heavy metal record. We wanted to push ourselves creatively and incorporate new sounds and instrumentation and ways of songwriting. It was very challenging but now we've got to the other end (of the process), we think it's fucking killer."

Bassist Jamie Mathias adds, "It's like a double edged sword in some ways, because it's got the heaviest moments that the band's ever written, and it's got the most beautiful light and melodic moments as well. It's kind of an album of extremes."

The album had something of a difficult birth. "At the start of this process, we were butting heads for weeks on end, not getting anywhere, none of us were digging anything. We didn't feel like it was breaking new ground, or pushing ourselves creatively," Tuck said.

"I went on a few writing sessions as well, with different people and different producers. I tried to push myself as a songwriter, to spark something different and new. And we got some of the key tracks and then we knew where to go, it made it a bit more focused."

Tuck is clearly envisioning playing large venues on the heels of the album, this time at the top of the bill. "There are lyrics that people can really latch on to, having real big statements in the choruses, they're anthems. We're not going for technicality or metal cred, we're going for kick-ass big fucking songs, and I think we've done it."

The album doesn't have a title or a release date yet, but Tuck says fans can expect to get a preview of the album at the band's upcoming dates. "I'm sure we'll play one or two. Definitely one: we have a single coming out in the next few weeks, we just shot a video."

Their tour schedule includes dates at huge rock festivals including Welcome to Rockville, Carolina Rebellion and Rock on the Range. So, with a new album coming out, what do they make of the mainstream music media's tired "rock is dead" declarations? "It's never a fair assessment, is it? We're coming off the back of a massive Avenged Sevenfold sold out tour. Who even says that? Rock is fine; it's alive and kickin'."

Bullet for My Valentine - Albums Ranked