Oli Sykes is not selling Count Your Blessings | Repented as an apology. That matters.
Bring Me The Horizon's 20th-anniversary re-recording of Count Your Blessings could have been an easy nostalgia play: old logo, old songs, old fans, quick vinyl cycle. Instead, Sykes has put a more specific reason on the table. The band did not hate the debut. They hated the way it sounded.
In a new interview with Nik Nocturnal, Sykes said people often assume Bring Me The Horizon are embarrassed by Count Your Blessings because the band rarely plays it. His explanation was more practical and more revealing: BMTH were disappointed with the original recording from the start.
The problem was the recording, not the record
Sykes described the band as young, under-budgeted, and inexperienced when they made the 2006 album. They wanted a producer who understood what they were trying to do. Instead, they ended up in a situation where nobody in the room seemed fully equipped for a deathcore record.
His examples are not romantic. He talked about the band not really understanding click tracks, guitar panning, or basic studio discipline. He said he got ill halfway through the sessions, which affected later vocal takes. He remembered listening back in the car and realizing the record did not hit the way the band wanted it to.
That is a cleaner explanation than "BMTH are trying to cash in on the Myspace era." It also matches the strange place Count Your Blessings holds in the band's story.
The record is important, but not because it is perfect. It is important because it caught Bring Me The Horizon before they learned how to turn chaos into architecture. The vocals were raw. The guitars were packed with riffs. The whole thing sounded like a young band sprinting faster than its own skill set could comfortably carry.
That is part of why the album still has a grip on deathcore and metalcore fans. It is not polished legacy metal. It is a document of a band trying to become something in public.
Metal Mantra covered the live side of this anniversary when BMTH announced the Count Your Blessings full-album set at Furnace Fest 2026. This new explanation fills in the studio side. The band are not just playing the debut again. They are trying to rebuild it into the version they wish they had been able to make.
Why Buster Odeholm had a harder job than expected
The re-recording, due July 10, has Sykes and guitarist Lee Malia working with producer and mixer Buster Odeholm. That choice makes sense on paper. Odeholm understands modern heavy production, and BMTH clearly wanted someone who could make the record hit with current weight.
The problem, according to Sykes, is that a modern heavy mix can overshoot the target.
He said the first mix had the huge snare, huge kick, and dense gain profile common to current heavy records. It sounded good, but not right for Count Your Blessings. BMTH wanted the best version of what that album should have sounded like in 2006, not a 2026 deathcore record wearing old clothes.
That distinction is the whole story.
The kick still needs that clickier, triggered feel. The snare needs the right ping. The riffs have to stay clear because, as Sykes pointed out, the album is loaded with riffs. If those disappear under too much modern gain, the re-recording loses the point.
That is also why Repented is more interesting than a normal anniversary edition. Bring Me The Horizon are not simply cleaning up tape hiss or remastering a classic. They are trying to answer a production question that has followed the album for two decades: what would Count Your Blessings sound like if the band had known more, had more money, and still kept the same ugly source code?
The deathcore revival makes this timing sharper
Sykes also called the style archaic, which is a blunt but useful word. Early BMTH deathcore is not the same thing as modern deathcore, even when younger bands are clearly pulling from that era. The guitar language, drum sounds, vocal choices, Myspace-era pacing, and scene posture all came from a different ecosystem.
That is why Repented has a tight target. If it sounds too modern, it becomes a remake that misses the record's original nervous system. If it stays too faithful, fans may wonder why it needed to exist beyond vinyl variants and anniversary hype.
The best version probably lives in the middle: clearer riffs, stronger vocals, tighter drums, but still recognizably tied to the first version's frantic shape.
Metal Mantra's deathcore beginner's guide lays out why the genre can be hard to explain cleanly to newer fans. Count Your Blessings is a useful case study because it sits at the messy edge where deathcore, metalcore, scene culture, and internet-era extremity all crashed into each other.
What fans get on July 10
Count Your Blessings | Repented is scheduled for July 10. Official product listings describe it as a fully re-recorded 20th-anniversary edition, with Sykes and Malia helming the process and Odeholm mixing the record. The band has described the project as a reactivation and recontextualization rather than a simple remake.
The timing lines up with a major live moment too. BMTH are set to perform Count Your Blessings in full at Manchester's B.E.C. Arena as part of an Outbreak-linked event on release day, with a bill built around the kind of hardcore, metalcore, and heavy-adjacent acts that make the anniversary feel less like museum work.
If you want the original back in rotation before the re-recording lands, Bring Me The Horizon's Count Your Blessings is available through Amazon.
The risk is obvious. Re-recording an ugly young album can sand off the exact flaws that made it stick.
But Sykes' explanation gives the project a stronger reason to exist. Bring Me The Horizon are not trying to pretend Count Your Blessings was secretly flawless. They are trying to make the record sound like the band thought it could sound before the studio got in the way.
