12 Years of Bring Me The Horizon ‘Sempiternal’: Every Track Ranked
This might be the best April Fools album yet, but perhaps, ‘The Top April Fools Records’ is a conversation for another day. Earlier this week, Bring Me The Horizon‘s monumental fourth studio album, Sempiternal, celebrated its 12th anniversary.
While arguably one of Bring Me The Horizon’s best full-length projects, earlier records Count Your Blessings and There is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There is a Heaven Let’s Keep it a Secret also stand out as notable mentions.
While Sempiternal is far from the band’s heaviest record, it’s easily one of their most successful albums. Mixing heavy metal with conventional rock, on this record, Bring Me the Horizon showed fans a glimpse of what they would later weave into their sound: experimental electronica with avant-garde production.
As cliche as it sounds, Sempiternal was ahead of its time. Although Bring Me The Horizon were already accumulating a massive fandom with scene kids, they were still pretty underground at the time. On Sempiternal, the group showed the industry that it could appeal to both heavy and alt-rock listeners.
In celebration of the album turning 12 this week, we’ve ranked every single track. This is by no means a best-to-worst scenario since Bring Me The Horizon struck gold with this record. However, we do warn you that before you heckle us, this piece is subjective…
13. “Join the Club”
“Join the Club” is another track on the album that isn’t bad per se, but it isn’t memorable either.
Sempiternal is packed with a lot of heavy-hitting and anthemic contenders, and unfortunately, amidst all of the bigger songs, “Join the Club” finds itself floating aimlessly between.
12. “Seen It All Before”
There’s something about “Seen It All Before” that feels like a dash of amo, six years ahead of its time. The experimental tendencies in this track are far bigger than any of the other songs on the album. It’s a fun track, but pretty much that at best. “Seen It All Before” is definitely more of a pop-rock song from Bring Me, and while it sits fine on the album, it isn’t one to turn heads.
11. “The House of Wolves”
While there’s nothing bad about this track, it’s certainly up there as one of the least memorable songs on the album. Aside from its title, there’s nothing majorly anthemic about this one. That being said, the outro is pretty mean and is arguably the best part of the song.
10. “Empire (Let Them Sing)”
The way the introduction slowly fades in and Sykes’ vocals get more progressive is something we’ll never tire of when listening to “Empire (Let Them Sing).” And while we all know that in the beginning stages of their career, Sykes’ screams were pretty much untrained, it gave him this raw and authentic sound that so many of us fell in love with.
9. “Crooked Young”
“Crooked Young” and “Death Beds” come in as close contenders. The only exception is that you can hear how much Sykes is straining his vocals on the former. That being said, “Crooked Young” has a really solid hook to it. The northern accent slips out as Sykes screams, “The clouds will eat your fucking prayers,” which, lyrically alone, is risky enough and bound to piss some religious people off, but joined with his accent slip, adds a lot of character.
8. “Death Beds”
Album closer “Death Beds,” is the softest track on the record and wraps up Sempiternal perfectly. It pretty much summarises an album that’s already built up of pent-up emotions of sadness with a melancholic ballad. There’s a deep sense of dissociation within “Death Beds” that somehow sits just right as the album finale – almost like an out-of-body experience.
7. “Hospital for Souls”
This track comes in strong with a really epic, slow burner of an introduction before it’s joined by screamo lyrics from Sykes. One the great things about “Hospital for Souls” is its melodic chorus line, joint with the existential crisis in Syke’s lyrics and vocal delivery. There’s a real sense of urgency and disaster in this track that makes it stand out as another belter of a heartbreaker.
6. “And the Snakes Start to Sing”
Nothing goes harder than the lyrics, “I’m just a would’ve been, could’ve been, should’ve been, never was and never ever will be.” It’s so disheartening and perfectly encapsulates the feeling of chronic anxiety and imposter syndrome. Themes of which are both echoed throughout the album. “And the Snakes Start to Sing” is an emo anthem.
5. “Shadow Moses”
We can all agree that the theme for this record was to create climactic heartbreak anthems for emos, right? Although nowhere near as hardcore as their earliest records, there are tracks on Sempiternal like “Shadow Moses”, that show you the band weren’t quite done with that era yet. Since then, Bring Me has become a more genrefluid project.
4. “Sleepwalking”
It goes without saying that “Sleepwalking” lies pretty comfortably amongst “Can You Feel My Heart” as one of the best tracks on this record. Accumulating over 200 million Spotify streams, “Sleepwalking” is quite literally one of the band’s most popular songs. Re-watching the music video in 2025 shows you just how up-and-coming Bring Me were at the time. In the last 12 years, their sound and movement in the music industry has changed exponentially – shifting them from the scene kid space into the mainstream.
3. “Go to Hell, for Heaven’s Sake”
“Go to Hell, for Heaven’s Sake” was the third single lifted from the album, and it continued the story of heartbreak and resentment. At the time, it was pretty clear that the band were trying to go even bigger with their visuals and storytelling. The music video for “Go to Hell, for Heaven’s Sake” saw the band record in a chapel with demonic symbols everywhere. The visuals were beyond dramatic but perfectly matched the energy of this track.
2. “Antivisit”
If “Antivisit” isn’t at the top of your list for this record, are you even a Bring Me fan? Ironically, “Antivisit” feels more like what the band slowly moved towards in their later albums. Sonically, it’s a metalcore track at large, but it packs a punch every single time. Lyrics “middle fingers up if you don’t give a fuck” and “United we’ll fail, divided we’ll fall” are synonymous with this tracks fame.
1. “Can You Feel My Heart”
Starting strong with “Can You Feel My Heart,” while the most overplayed song on the album, there is no denying that this is the best track on this record. It’s ultimately the perfect breakup anthem. A ballad full of yearning and passionate lyrics and a climactic chorus. What more could you want? On top of it being an emotionally captivating song, the music video is the icing on the top.
