COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS | REPENTED
— A BRUTAL GIFT TO FANS OR A NOSTALGIA-FUELLED CASH GRAB? 💀🔥
Break out the skinny jeans, straighten that legendary MySpace fringe and prepare to be drop-kicked directly back into 2006, because Bring Me The Horizon have officially released Count Your Blessings | Repented — a completely re-recorded version of their savage debut album.
Released on Friday, 10 July 2026, the album arrives as part of the record’s 20th-anniversary celebrations and sees the Sheffield giants returning to the deathcore chaos that first launched them into the heavy music wilderness.
Yes, mun. The band that now headlines the world’s biggest festivals has gone back to the blast beats, breakdowns, guttural vocals and song titles that would make your nan drop her cup of tea.
But is this a genuine celebration of the album that started everything — or are we watching the nostalgia machine crank out another shiny anniversary product?
Let’s get stuck in. 🤘
💀 TWENTY YEARS OF
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
Originally released in October 2006, Count Your Blessings introduced Bring Me The Horizon as a ferocious young band with absolutely no interest in playing nicely.
The record was raw, messy, aggressive and completely ridiculous in the best possible way. It sounded like five lads had locked themselves inside a rehearsal room, swallowed a crate of energy drinks and declared war on silence.
Songs including Pray for Plagues, For Stevie Wonder’s Eyes Only (Braille) and (I Used to Make Out With) Medusa became essential listening for an entire generation of alternative kids.
The album also divided opinion like somebody announcing Nickelback as a surprise festival headliner.
Some listeners worshipped it. Others couldn’t stand it. Metal purists complained about the band’s image, their MySpace popularity and the growing deathcore movement surrounding them.
Bring Me The Horizon didn’t just survive that hostility — they became one of the biggest British rock bands of the modern era.
🔥 WHAT IS
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS | REPENTED
?
This isn’t simply the original album being remastered, polished up and shoved back onto streaming platforms with a new cover.
Bring Me The Horizon have fully re-recorded the album.
Frontman Oli Sykes and guitarist Lee Malia headed up the project alongside producer and mixer Buster Odeholm, giving the songs a heavier, sharper and considerably more modern sound.
The songwriting remains rooted in the band’s chaotic early years, but the recording arrives with two decades of experience, improved technology and the sort of production muscle that wasn’t available when the original was created.
It is essentially Count Your Blessings after twenty years in the gym.
The scrappy teenager has grown up, bought a seven-string guitar and started drinking protein shakes full of broken glass.
🎧
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS | REPENTED
TRACKLIST
The anniversary edition revisits the original album while also throwing in an unexpected cover from one of Bring Me The Horizon’s biggest influences.
- Pray for Plagues – 2026 Repented
- Tell Slater Not to Wash His Dick – 2026 Repented
- For Stevie Wonder’s Eyes Only (Braille) – 2026 Repented
- A Lot Like Vegas – 2026 Repented
- Black & Blue – 2026 Repented
- Slow Dance – 2026 Repented
- Dragon Slaying – 2026 Repented
- (I Used to Make Out With) Medusa – 2026 Repented
- Fifteen Fathoms, Counting – 2026 Repented
- Off the Heezay – 2026 Repented
- Eyeless – Slipknot cover
That final track is likely to cause a few neck injuries all by itself.
BMTH tackling Slipknot’s Eyeless feels completely appropriate. The influence of Slipknot’s early aggression can be heard throughout Bring Me The Horizon’s original deathcore era, making the cover feel more like a respectful nod than a random bonus track thrown onto the end.
🩸 DOES IT STILL SOUND LIKE THE ORIGINAL?
The spirit remains, but the execution is understandably different.
The original Count Your Blessings captured a young band operating on instinct. Its production was abrasive, its performances were rough around the edges and its imperfections became part of its identity.
That rawness cannot truly be recreated — and trying to copy it exactly would defeat the entire point.
Repented instead asks a far more interesting question:
What would Bring Me The Horizon’s debut sound like if the band recorded it with everything they know now?
The guitars hit with greater clarity. The drums sound enormous. The breakdowns carry significantly more weight, while Oli Sykes approaches the material as a vocalist who has spent twenty years stretching, damaging, rebuilding and redefining his voice.
It isn’t 2006 again.
It’s 2006 being dragged kicking and screaming into 2026.
🤔 IS IT A GIFT TO THE FANS?
For those who have followed Bring Me The Horizon since the days of questionable haircuts and even more questionable social-media usernames, this release carries a huge amount of nostalgia.
Many fans believed the band had permanently moved away from the sound of their debut.
BMTH’s career has since travelled through metalcore, electronic rock, arena anthems, pop experimentation and the genre-smashing POST HUMAN era. Asking them to return fully to deathcore sometimes felt like asking Metallica to re-record Kill ’Em All inside somebody’s garage.
Yet here we are.
The band have revisited the album properly, rather than simply sticking “20th Anniversary Edition” on the original and adding three demos recorded through a potato.
That makes Repented feel like a genuine event.
It allows older fans to hear familiar songs rebuilt with modern power, while giving younger listeners a more accessible route into an album whose original production may have previously sounded like it was recorded during a fist fight in a wheelie bin.
💷 OR IS IT A CASH GRAB?
Let’s be honest: anniversary releases make money.
There are vinyl editions, CDs, cassettes, bundles, collector’s items and enough merchandise to make your bank account start playing sad violin music.
Nostalgia is big business across rock and metal. Bands know fans will happily buy another edition of an album they already own if it comes pressed on limited-edition “haunted Greggs steak bake splatter” vinyl.
But the phrase cash grab feels slightly harsh here.
The band haven’t merely repackaged the old recording. They have returned to the studio and rebuilt the entire album, creating something that can stand alongside the original rather than replace it.
Nobody is being forced to buy it. The original record remains available, complete with all its glorious roughness.
Fans can choose their preferred version — or keep both and start an argument about it online at three in the morning, as rock tradition demands.
🎤 THE ORIGINAL VERSUS THE RE-RECORDING
The original Count Your Blessings is a time capsule.
It captures Bring Me The Horizon before the arena tours, headline slots and global success. It sounds young because the band were young. It sounds reckless because they were still figuring out exactly what they could become.
Repented offers a different experience.
It presents those same songs through the hands of musicians who have spent two decades evolving. It has more control, greater clarity and considerably more sonic weight.
Some fans will always prefer the grime and unpredictability of the 2006 recording. Others will welcome the gigantic modern production of the new version.
Neither side is wrong.
Apart from whichever side starts shouting personal insults in the Facebook comments. Calm down, Dai. It’s an album, not a dispute over the last sausage roll.
🤘 FROM MYSPACE OUTCASTS TO FESTIVAL HEADLINERS
The most fascinating part of Count Your Blessings | Repented is what it represents.
When the original album arrived, Bring Me The Horizon were mocked by large sections of the metal establishment. Their clothes were criticised. Their fans were dismissed. Their music was treated like a passing trend.
Two decades later, countless bands cite them as an influence.
They have sold out arenas, headlined major festivals and repeatedly changed direction without losing their ability to create absolute carnage.
Re-recording Count Your Blessings therefore feels like a victory lap for an album that many people underestimated.
The band didn’t erase their controversial beginnings. They built an empire on top of them.
🏆 THE RIFF REPORT VERDICT
Is Count Your Blessings | Repented essential?
For dedicated BMTH fans, absolutely.
For listeners who never connected with the original deathcore material, this modern recording probably won’t suddenly transform them into breakdown-loving pit goblins.
But as a celebration of Bring Me The Horizon’s beginnings, it is far more interesting than the standard anniversary reissue.
The original remains the chaotic historical document. The new version is the heavyweight remake — cleaner, sharper and built to shake modern festival sound systems until the burger vans start vibrating.
Calling it a cash grab ignores the work involved in completely re-recording an album.
Calling it better than the original misses what made the 2006 release special.
The truth sits somewhere in the middle: this is a loud, brutal and fascinating celebration of a record that helped reshape British heavy music.
Now straighten that fringe, charge the old iPod and warn the neighbours.
The plagues are back, butt. 💀🔥
⭐ THE RIFF REPORT RATING:
8.5/10
A savage resurrection that respects the past without pretending twenty years haven’t passed. It won’t replace the original — but it was never supposed to.
Is Count Your Blessings | Repented a brilliant gift to the fans, an unnecessary remake or a nostalgia-powered cash grab? Let us know what you reckon! 🤘
Michael is the founder, editor, and chief riff wrangler behind The Riff Report, an independent Welsh rock and metal publication built by fans, for fans. With a lifelong passion for loud guitars, unforgettable live shows, and the incredible community that surrounds rock and metal, he created The Riff Report to celebrate everything that makes the scene special—from legendary headline acts and grassroots venues to rising bands that deserve to be heard.
A familiar face at festivals across the UK, Michael spends much of the year covering events including Download Festival, Bloodstock Open Air, Steelhouse Festival, Firevolt, Plumpton Revival, and many more. Whether he’s battling the Welsh weather on a mountainside, surviving a weekend in a muddy campsite, or squeezed against the front barrier with thousands of fellow fans, he’s always searching for the next great story to share.
As editor of The Riff Report, Michael writes festival guides, breaking news, album reviews, gig reviews, interviews, opinion pieces, nostalgia features, and behind-the-scenes stories from across the rock and metal world. His writing combines honest opinions, humour, and a genuine love for live music, bringing readers closer to the bands, festivals, venues, and people that keep the scene alive.
Michael is particularly passionate about supporting independent artists, local venues, charities, and the wider UK rock and metal community. He believes every band deserves a chance to be discovered and every festival has a story worth telling. Through The Riff Report, he aims to shine a spotlight on both the biggest names in rock and the future stars waiting to break through.
When he’s not writing or interviewing artists, you’ll probably find him exploring festival campsites, photographing live shows, chatting with fellow fans over a pint, or planning the next road trip in search of more riffs, bigger crowds, and unforgettable moments.
Above all, Michael believes rock and metal are about more than music—they’re about community, friendship, and creating memories that last a lifetime. That’s exactly what The Riff Report exists to celebrate.
Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. Always chasing the next great riff. 🤘
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