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| It’s always the fearless who are destined to make the biggest impact on the world. Those willing to make confetti from the rule book, to ignore the conventional wisdom of industry and listen to everything their gut instinct is telling them, they’re the ones who will push thi |
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It’s always the fearless who are destined to make the biggest impact on the world. Those willing to make confetti from the rule book, to ignore the conventional wisdom of industry and listen to everything their gut instinct is telling them, they’re the ones who will push things forward and make life exciting, be they artists, authors, scientists, explorers, or musicians. They may not follow the easiest path, but it’s sure as hell a more interesting view along the way. This is where Biffy Clyro come in - usually from a hidden door you didn’t even realise existed.
‘Infinity Land’, the band’s third album in as many years, is a testament to doing things your own way. They’re classic tortoises in a world demanding hares. While many of their peers have risen and then sharply fallen casualty to the machinations of the music industry, Biffy Clyro’s bloody-minded slowly-but-surely approach has led to one of the most intelligent, abrasive, poppy, idiosyncratic, downright magical albums to come out of this country in years.
The opening 'Glitter And Trauma’ has already yielded the band’s highest chart-placing yet - number 21 with no more hype behind it than an excited and apprehensive fanbase. And you can understand why they took it to their hearts as it kicks in with an almost industrial heaviness before blooming thrillingly into a stomping, shimmering gem that reveals more with every listen. Wave Upon Wave Upon Wave’, meanwhile, sounds like at least three different songs smashed together to create something brutally beautiful, eerie, angry and glorious all at the same time. The warm, fuzzy-edged ‘Got Wrong’ follows in the footsteps of alt-rock legends like Far, before the raw, stark piano ballad ‘The Atrocity’ sees Biffy at their most open and vulnerable. In other places you’ll find film-score horns, agonised screams, perfect, gleaming choruses, killer riffs, and even a move into male voice choir territory with ‘There’s No Such Man As Crasp’. Over 13 songs, you’ll find every human emotion lurking in the most unexpected of corners. It is, quite simply, their finest work to date.
“It’s not about being awkward, but when we listen to music, we want to be challenged a wee bit,” enthuses frontman Simon Neil. “You don’t want to understand an album the first time you listen to it. That’s the problem with a lot of music, when you listen to the first 15 seconds of it and you can tell how the song’s going to end. We want to make things interesting as opposed to challenging. I think on first listen it seems more complex than the last two albums, but in actuality it’s poppier than anything we’ve done before. I think the more you get to know it, it will seem a more simple album every time you hear it.
None of this would have been possible had Biffy Clyro ever relinquished the tiniest bit of control over their band. Fiercely independent and gratifyingly genreless, they’ve built up one of the country’s most loyal fanbases through a gruelling, seemingly non-stop tour schedule that has taken them from the tiniest, most gig-starved outposts of the British Isles (“It’s just absolutely crazy up in the north of Scotland,” Simon Neil says. “If you play a gig, everybody comes out to see it and they plan a two-day party around the gig.”) to huge dates with the likes of the Deftones and playing the mainstages at Reading, Leeds and T In The Park. They answer to no-one else, sound like no-one else, and still rehearse in the same windowless YMCA room they’ve always used. The seeds were sown back in the mid-’90s, when school friends Simon Neil and Ben Johnston got their first guitar and drums respectively. Christening themselves Screwfish and bringing Ben’s twin brother James in on bass, they soon moved on from covering the music they loved - Guns N’Roses, Soundgarden and Tool all made their impact on the embryonic band - to realising there was a spark of something special happening with their own sound. Their first gig, supporting local heroes Pink Kross at a youth centre, was followed by a move to Glasgow, ostensibly to study audio engineering (Ben and James) and electronics in music (Simon), but in truth it was to avoid getting a job so they could concentrate on the band full-time. Manager Dee Bahl was one of the first people to spot Biffy’s potential, putting out their debut single ‘Iname’ in 1999, before they were picked up by Glasgow’s Electric Honey label for the insightfully titled ‘thekidswhopoptodaywillrocktomorrow’ EP.
“When our first single was out we thought we’d made it,” grins the guitarist. “It’s just the most exciting feeling in the world, we were actually a proper band then for the first time ever. It was an amazing feeling.”
By the time they were spotted by Beggars Banquet, in the unsigned bands tent at 2000’s T In The Park festival, they had spent night after night wooing crowds with their often heart wrenchingly pretty and emotional, often raging and raucous attack on rock. There could be no doubt about their ambition and drive, something the indie label allowed them to nurture. Their first single for Beggars, ‘27’, was promptly awarded Single Of The Week at Kerrang!. Not likely to rest on their laurels, they stopped touring just long enough to release their debut album, the anthemic ‘’Blackened Sky’, in 2001. A mere year later and the spiky ‘Vertigo Of Bliss’ arrived, recorded in a single day, giving it the feel and the electricity of the live shows their rapidly-expanding army of fans devotedly turned out to time after time. “The high points are every time we play a gig and people are singing the words back at us,” says Simon Neil. “It’s just so mind-blowing, just because we still practice in the same place we did four or five years ago. There’s no windows or anything in it, so when we play our songs it’s just the three of us, so it’s surreal when we go to venues and people are singing every word. Sometimes the fans know the words better than we do. I’ll end up singing the wrong line, and everybody in the crowd’s singing the right one. It’s so exciting that people love Biffy Clyro as much as me, Ben and James do."
With ‘Infinity Land’ - their most accomplished record to date - all set to be unleashed, Biffy Clyro’s time has finally come, and those who have been under their spell for all this time are surely getting ready to be joined by countless more like-minded souls. It’s proof that people don’t need to be spoon-fed easy, boring, obvious music. People are hungry for more. For something with heart and brains, aggression and gorgeous melodies to cling onto.
“There’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration from things that happened years ago,” concludes Simon Neil. “But I think a lot of bands think ‘the best songs have all been written so what’s the point of trying anything new? ’ If people can’t push themselves at every stage, it’s such a crock of shit. It makes me so angry, because there’s so many great bands who blow my mind every time I hear them. I hope we can do that for some people. I just think the best music is yet to come.”
It’s pretty clear where it’s going to come from, too - a small, dark YMCA room in Glasgow.
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2003 BIOGRPAHY by Ben Myers
“The people that have heard us seem to love us. And that’s the important thing: there’s still so many more out there who’ll potentially feel the same way. But our only real ambition is to be our own favourite band…and I think we’re succeeding.” - Simon Neil
In a time when the term punk rock is bandied about for easy access to credibility, Biffy Clyro are true exponents of a punk rock sound and ideal for 2003 - one which ensures everything centres around a constant musical (r)evolution They're signed to an independent label, still rehearse in the same YMCA room for £10 a week - and happily boast about the fact - and patently don't give a flying fig for notching up the obligatory Top 20 hits that are demanded of their contemporaries. Think back to all the great bands who have done it their way, who turned down or tuned up for no-one, regardless of commercial consequences. It’s this attitude on which careers are built and respect earned. And so far for Biffy Clyro its working like a dream.
The trio’s recent thirty-date UK tour saw sold out shows the length and breadth of the country, with six hundred rapturous converts cramming into London Underworld to sing every single word to every single song in what will turn out to be one of the capital's most over-subscribed gigs of 2003. A beautiful, beautiful sight. These recent rapturous shows are testament to Biffy Clyro's expanding fanbase, one which transcends the usual demographic, and draws in both young kids falling in and out of love for the first time and those who've been waiting patiently for a band who exude that same heart-stopping dynamic and raw, bloodied purity last heard with Nirvana in '91. Plus the high female quota shows is tribute to the refreshing feminine streak running through Simon Neil's lyrics - a real rarity in rock 'n' roll these days.
“We’re in for the long haul – this isn’t about having ‘hits’ or having money”
Formed by singer/guitarist Neil and drummer Ben Johnston in the mid-1990's while in their mid-teens, Biffy Clyro's formative years were a trial-by-fire apprenticeship that saw them quickly move on from their Nirvana + Guns N' Roses fixation and a brief period as Screwfish. Ben's twin brother came in on bass and Biffy Clyro debuted at a local youth centre supporting cult favourites Pink Kross. In 1997 the trio relocated to Glasgow to study audio engineering and electronics in music, but primarily to turn Biffy Clyro into a full-time proposition.
As is the way for young men stepping out into the world the next couple of years saw the trio hardening their sound and broadening their musical horizons to take in the intelligent post-hardcore of Fugazi and the DC sound, influential emo originators such as Far and Mineral, the broken-hearted laments of Red House Painters and all manner of other such heroes of the alt-rock hinterlands. Five minutes in their company reveals Biffy Clyro to be true aficionados of music. Today they're namedropping Dillinger Escape Plan, Rush, Cave In, Stevie Wonder, tomorrow will bring a new discovery.
So far, so what?, then. But then at some point Biffy Clyro got good. Really good. Debut single 'Iname' was unleashed in May 1999 by manager Dee Bahl, with the charmingly-titled 'thekidswhopoptodaytwillrocktomorrow' EP following soon after on Electric Honey (the label that released Belle & Sebastian's 'Tiger Milk' album). More importantly they played show after show, refining their taut, emotionally charged sound alongside fellow Scots Eska and Lapsus Linguae. Spotted playing the unsigned stage at 2000's T In The Park festival, they promptly signed to Beggars Banquet and released debut single - and Kerrang! Single Of The Week - '27' in October 2000.
And that's when things really started happening. With all three members sharing vocal duties and Simon's heart-achingly powerful lyrics painting pictures of both despair and elation, betrayal and celebration, their fanbase swelled inconsiderably. Off the back of blitzkrieg tours that saw the band hitting every town that would have them, Biffy Clyro recorded tracks with Paul Corkett (Placebo, Six By Seven) and Chris Sheldon (Foo Fighters, Idlewild). 'Justboy' preceded debut album 'Blackened Sky', released in early 2001. A slow-burner complimented by seemingly endless shows alongside the cream of the Britrock crop and a European tour with The Cooper Temple Clause, ‘Blackened Sky’ was one of the most critically-acclaimed underground albums of 2002. And its from the underground that Biffy Clyro shall rise to dizzier heights.
“There’s only a year between the two albums, and that’s a deliberate move. What’s the point in being in a band otherwise?'
Get this: Biffy Clyro’s new album 'The Vertigo Of Bliss' was recorded in one day. One day. Guns n' Roses they aren’t. Thank God. Ensconced in Great Linford Manor studio with Chris Sheldon they ripped through a set of fifteen songs and spent the rest of the week on Playstation. The result is a rich, diverse album of angular post-hardcore / alt-rock. Call it what you want. Taking it’s title from a phrase in contemporary novel ‘I Lucifer’, ‘The Vertigo Of Bliss’ is an inspired rush of emotion, contemplation and twisting melodies. Those in the know have had Biffy Clyro pegged as leading lights in a grass-roots scene for some time now. With their sophomore album, the likeable trio are set to soundtrack the lives of those whose path they cross. As Simon Neil says:
“Guitar, bass, drums – it’s been done before and it’ll be done again. But if the song is amazing it doesn’t matter. You can’t polish a turd.”
And the name? Best not ask. Just listen with open ears.
Ben Myers
March 2003.
Source: http://www.beggars.com/banquet/index.htm?../artists/biffy_clyro/index.htm&0 |
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