Released on 30 October 2006, Bring Me The Horizon’s debut album captured a young British band at its most uncompromising, laying the groundwork for a career that would eventually take it far beyond deathcore. Twenty years later, the original record remains a defining document of the band’s early years, even as its 2026 re-recording revisits material the group once left behind.
Bring Me The Horizon released Count Your Blessings on 30 October 2006, introducing a band whose early deathcore sound would eventually give way to one of the more dramatic stylistic evolutions in modern British rock. Two decades later, the album stands as a snapshot of the group before its ambitions expanded, its production became more sophisticated and its relationship with its original sound grew increasingly complicated.
Recorded when the members were still teenagers, Count Your Blessings was built around the intensity of extreme metal. Oli Sykes’ vocals, the twin-guitar attack of Lee Malia and Curtis Ward, Matt Kean’s bass and Matt Nicholls’ drums created a sound driven by rapid riffing, breakdowns and the collision of death metal and metalcore influences.
Producer Dan Sprigg oversaw the recording at DEP International Studios in Birmingham. The band was intent on pushing its heaviness as far as possible, and the resulting album reflected the urgency of a young group still establishing its identity. Some material came together under tight time constraints, giving the record a rawness that would become part of its character.
That sound was a long way from the broader electronic, alternative rock and arena-sized production that would feature in Bring Me The Horizon’s later work. On Count Your Blessings, the emphasis was on speed, aggression and the extremity of the performance. The album did not attempt to bridge the band’s beginnings with the musical territory it would eventually explore. It documented the starting point.
The original release contained 10 tracks, opening with “Pray For Plagues” and closing with “Off The Heezay”. Songs including “Tell Slater Not To Wash His Dick”, “For Stevie Wonder’s Eyes Only (Braille)” and “(I Used To Make Out With) Medusa” reflected the abrasive sound and provocative naming conventions associated with the group’s early period.
“Pray For Plagues” would become the album’s most enduring calling card. Its combination of technical guitar work, breakdowns and Sykes’ extreme vocal delivery helped establish the band’s early reputation. “For Stevie Wonder’s Eyes Only (Braille)” also received a video release, while a limited US Hot Topic edition added a cover of Slipknot’s “Eyeless”.
Commercially, the debut was a modest beginning rather than an indication of the scale the band would eventually reach. Count Your Blessings peaked at number 93 on the UK Albums Chart and number nine on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart. Contemporary responses were mixed, with the album’s intensity recognised alongside criticism of its production and perceived lack of originality.
Bring Me The Horizon did not remain in that musical territory for long. The subsequent albums Suicide Season and There Is A Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven Let’s Keep It A Secret. marked stages in a broader evolution, as the group moved beyond the conventions of its debut and began developing a more expansive musical vocabulary.
That progression also changed the band’s relationship with Count Your Blessings. The album became a reference point for an earlier incarnation rather than a blueprint for the future. Its songs largely disappeared from regular setlists as the group moved forward, although “Pray For Plagues” returned for selected performances, including a 2014 appearance at Wembley Arena featuring former guitarist Curtis Ward.
The distance was understandable. Artists rarely remain attached to the musical instincts that shaped their first recordings, particularly when those records were made so early in their careers. For Bring Me The Horizon, the debut represented a particular moment in its development, not a sound it intended to preserve indefinitely.
Yet the album’s standing within deathcore has continued to be reassessed. What once represented an early, rough-edged release in a young band’s catalogue is now part of the historical record of a genre that developed through the 2000s. Its importance lies not in predicting everything Bring Me The Horizon would become, but in documenting the starting point from which that transformation took place.
The anniversary has brought the original album back into focus, although the band moved ahead of the date itself with a new version. Announced in April 2026, Count Your Blessings | Repented was released on 10 July, presenting a complete re-recording of the debut. A new version of “Black & Blue” preceded the album on 12 June, followed by “Dehumanized”, a previously unreleased bonus track, on 25 June.
The re-recording offers a contemporary revisit to material written and recorded by a much younger band. It is a significant addition to the album’s history, but it does not replace the original’s place in the chronology of Bring Me The Horizon’s development. The 2006 recording remains the document of the group as it was at the beginning, before the musical changes that would define its later career.
Twenty years on, Count Your Blessings can be heard both as a product of its era and as the foundation of an unusually wide-ranging career. The anniversary belongs first to the original album, released on 30 October 2006. Repented provides a new perspective on that history, while the debut preserves the sound of Bring Me The Horizon before it became the band audiences would later recognise.
Bring Me The Horizon – Count Your Blessings (2006)
Original album tracklisting
1. Pray For Plagues – 4:21
2. Tell Slater Not To Wash His Dick – 3:30
3. For Stevie Wonder’s Eyes Only (Braille) – 4:29
4. A Lot Like Vegas – 2:09
5. Black & Blue – 4:33
6. Slow Dance – 1:16
7. Liquor & Love Lost – 2:39
8. (I Used To Make Out With) Medusa – 5:39
9. Fifteen Fathoms, Counting – 1:56
10. Off The Heezay – 5:39
Total running time: 36:19
The limited US Hot Topic edition included a cover of Slipknot’s “Eyeless”.
Original album personnel
– Oli Sykes – vocals
– Lee Malia – guitar
– Curtis Ward – guitar
– Matt Kean – bass
– Matt Nicholls – drums
Production, recording, mixing and mastering: Dan Sprigg with Bring Me The Horizon.
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