Album review: Biffy Clyro

Published on Sunday 8 November 2009 21:40

BIFFY CLYRO: ONLY REVOLUTIONS *** 14TH FLOOR, £12.72

WHILE X Factor contestants are touted as a supposed inspiration to their peers before they have even embarked on a career, back in the real world the success of Biffy Clyro can be held up as practical encouragement that it is still possible for a quirky band to emerge from the leftfield and rise through the ranks to become one of the most influential acts in the country.

All over Scotland, you can hear echoes of their odd time signatures and variations on their abstruse song titles courtesy of the next generation of alt-rockers. But with their grassroots work done, Biffy continue to move further into the realm of arena rock on their fifth album. Only Revolutions is festooned with epic choruses and chunky riffs, which are now supplemented with punchy brass and pizzicato strings (arranged by David Campbell – aka Beck's dad).

Current single The Captain is a bold opener, in that it is the poppiest thing they have done to date, featuring lashings of brass and a banner-waving rallying cry of a chorus with typically offbeat lyrics: "help me be captain of our crippled disguises".

Previous album Puzzle was effectively a requiem for frontman Simon Neil's mother. Although the soul-searching is not entirely over (check out God & Satan), this time round Neil is recently married and celebrating love. The swelling ballad Many Of Horror strays perilously close to the bland anthems of Snow Patrol and Coldplay, but there is solace for rock fans in the Biffy business-as-usual hell-for-leather urgency of That Golden Rule and the sturdy power rock of Bubbles, which is embellished by guest guitarist Josh Homme and a hint of a Wings influence. Even at their most commercial, Biffy still like a curveball.