Bullet For My Valentine’s Matt Tuck Names Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power as His Most Iconic Guitar Tone

When Bullet For My Valentine released Gravity in 2018, the album marked a deliberate step away from the dense, technical guitar work that had defined much of their catalogue. Matt Tuck described the record as more simple and foundation-based, a reaction to years of intricate riffs and solos. That shift also shaped tracking: only one guitar left and one right, with no double-tracking. Tuck said it made the process quicker and, depending on the song, could make the sound bigger.

Speaking to Music Radar at the time, Tuck and lead guitarist Michael Paget also reflected on the working chemistry that held the band together. Paget recalled a stripped-back playthrough video in New York where their two-guitar interplay felt unusually tight. Tuck framed it as shared time and shared priorities: both wanted what served the song rather than the individual.

Asked which guitar tone felt most iconic, Tuck did not hesitate. He named the late Dimebag Darrell’s sound on Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power. “It’s just crushing… though not a regular sounding tone, it’s very honky and scooped,” Tuck said. The comment points less to nostalgia than to a standard that still lingers over heavy guitar records, including the more streamlined one BFMV were making at the time.