The double album has a massive stigma attached to it. The Beatles may well have pulled it off with the White Album, but with three strong-writers each refusing to budge, a wedge of quality tunes from all of them and even a song from Ringo Starr, they had more than enough varied material for the job.
Other double albums have struggled to get interest, whether it be long running times, lack of tunes or lack of different tunes. The latest band to fall into such a trap are Green Day, who tried to do a triple album but didn't have the tunes to maintain their sound over three hours.
Next to take on the double album is Biffy Clyro. The Scottish rock band made three albums on an indie level and accumulated a good following for their unusual brand of weird-rock. Then 4th album Puzzle saw them make a major label debut, where they begun to play bigger gigs and support slots for major names like Muse, Red Hot Chili Peppers and (bizarrely) The Rolling Stones, despite fans considering this record their weakest.
Afterwards came Only Revolutions - a brilliant record that acted halfway house between the poppier Puzzle and their more histronic first trio - and they hit the jackpot, with arena tours, a headline slot at Sonisphere and more stadium support slots that saw as many people there for them as the likes of headliners Muse and Foo Fighters.
At the end of 2011 Biffy told Q magazine they had 45 potential songs. While they have wittled away more than half that number, it's somewhat of a challenge to get people onboard over such a wide and vast assortment of tunes.
For those who don't think they can manage the whole thing, there is a 14 track single-disk version. But the full 20 songs are all bursting to be heard and chances are the 14 could have cut out a gem or two. But how does this break down and does it all deserve to be heard or have Biffy fallen into rock fallacy?
Disc One - The Sand At The Core Of Our Bones:
1. Different People
This song opens the single disk version as well the 'more negative' first disk. An elongated swell of church organ, gently strummed guitars and atmospheric vocals plays a more serene, almost hymn-like opening. It's a lovely, almost ballady structure, that turns into a more rock sound around 2 1/2 minutes.
2. Black Chandelier
The lead single is more of the slow-Biffy that was out in vogue on Puzzle and Only Revolutions, albeit with a pleasing and slightly random heavy riff after the second repetition of the chorus. The drip-drip-drip-drip intro is a novel introduction for what is, the most part, a classic ballad-y lead single. A few listens in however and it clicks into a pleasing mixture of melancholic ballad, stadium rock and heaviness.
3. Sounds Like Balloons
Classic Biffy arrives on a song that was first aired on the 2012 festival circuit. A jazzy stop-start rhythm underpins jittery, nervous verses, before bursting into full rock chorus that quotes the names of both disks and heavy riff. This is definitley the strongest of the first three on first listen - it has the power, the choruses, the verses and the rhyhtm to make it big.
4. Opposite
Musically this is quite a nice, chill number with gentle guitar work and a simple drum riff topped off with some strings. Lyrically, it's anything but nice and the negative side this album is billed as is out in force - "You are in love with a shadow that won't come back" is possibly the song's most positive lyric - but it's a great chorus and it is a well crafted track.
5. The Joke's On Us
After a slower, a heavy fast one belts out. This song is technically the first cut to be aired from either album after Biffy surprisingly debuted it at their Foo Fighters support slots at the MK Bowl in 2011. The original version was fairly unspectacular compared to this one, which explodes with a supermassive riff, an even huger chorus and some classic fiddly guitar parts. Another winner in this one.
6. Biblical
This song has a big misleading impression with it's restrained intro. Once Simon Neil and the guitar have opened, it gives way to a stomping verse, and then that subsides for a synthesizer-led massive chorus. There's plenty of massive riffing and woooahhh-ohs like recent Muse to bring the end to this song, before it reverts to the opening line. This song was mooted as a possible single and it definitley has potential for such a role.
7. A Girl And His Cat
More misleading fun as a twinkly synthy intro is quickly suplimented by a batshit riff. The rock stays atop a base layer of twinkling synthesizers, and creates a classic mass-rock song for the most part. This song certainly could've belonged on Only Revolutions, and certainly helps its credentials as classic Biffy by a misleading twinkly bit that gives way to even heavier riffs. Quite why this is cut from the 14-disk edition is a bit of a mystery.
8. The Fog
A third tune in a row to have the touch of twinkling synthesizers, and second to start as such. However this one is a lot more minimal. There's a very filmic vibe to a lot of the music, particulary when a huge dramatic buzz fills the speakers about 2/3rds of the way through. Like Opposite, this song is a slow song about a lover's distress, but of those two it is certainly the better song.
9. Little Hospitals
The last song to be recorded for the album is also one of the more old skool Biffy tunes. Some cleverly flickering guitar touches atop a pummelling groove as it piles through choruses. The more recent touches of echo-ing up the vocals is in forth, as are a lot of squeaking vibes, which comes from adding a bunch of kazoos. However the kazoos aren't loud enough in the mix, which is the slight disappointment to quite a good track.
10. The Thaw
Disc one ends with a track led by an old Swedish proverb - "The secrets buried in the snow will always come out in the thaw". Starting out as a fairly simple ballad it grows in bombast with surging strings before paring down and wondering "Tonight we shared the same space - has anything become of it?". It's a nice tune and is again well put-together but it does lack a little oomph...
Disc Two - The Land At The End Of The Toes:
1. Stingin' Belle
Chances are you'll have heard this one already. This is recent Biffy with a different twist - a staggeringly heavy nailgun riff, soaring stadium rock choruses piling after one another and then a euphoric outro replete with a bagpipe-y solo played on guitar. It's definitley a triumphant opener to this mammoth onslaught.
2. Modern Magic Formula
Far from content of starting with one heavy song, this song explodes out the speakers. Swaggering heavy bursts flavour the first 2 1/2 minutes. A quiet whispered mid-section emerges in this one before the guitars are thrashed even harder, through a mass of solos and riffs that end the song on full heaviness.
3. Spanish Radio
In the words of a popular sweet commercial, bring on the trumpets. A lone trumpeter opens up the song and the chorus in this bounding mid-tempo number is also layered over with the rest of the mariachi band. Suddenly the song builds up more, with the pummeling bass layered over by scores of trumpets, chants and Mexican instruments. Then, just as the song seems to slow down, the trick of coming back louder rockets in again as a trumpet-led swell of rock riffery brings an unexpectedly impressive fusion of genres.
4. Victory Over The Sun
There's an almost filmic touch to the intro of the song, with strings and percussive shakers accompanying a ringing lonesome guitar and echoing vocals. This peace lasts a minute and a half, before the rhythm gets faster and jerkier. This is a pretty pleasant tune, if the weakest so far on disc 2, but it is certainly another worthy tune.
5. Pocket
Having previously been cut from both Puzzle and Only Revolutions, and also cut from the 14-track edition, this song has the air of possibly the most elusive song ever. There's an almost 90s-touch to the tune, with stop-start clicking rhyhtms and a few touches reminding of things big in the 90s. It's not a bad song but it's not as good as others here one.
6. Trumpet or Tap
This one starts as a more laid-back tune with guitar work that recalls Red Hot Chili Peppers. It gets more intense for its chorus, with the catalyst for this weirdly being the clip-clap moves of a tap dancer. As is a habit of a lot of songs here, it gets more intense as it builds on further with frenzied cries of "can you just say it's true?" heralding the arrival of a cocktail of strings and riffs. Not that it helps with the impression a lot of songs are sounding similar, although again it is very well crafted.
7. Skylight
Like Pocket, this song did not emerge earlier despite being written before Only Revolutions. It is also the lighter songs on the second album, beginning with just an acoustic guitar, before strings, bleeping keyboards and industrial-sounding electronic drums pile in. Like The Fog, there's a pleasingly punchy film soundtrack vibe.
8. Accident Without Emergency
This song that blossoms from slower to heavier sections, but it isn't one of the all-out rock moments. There's a U2 vibe with touches from heavier acts. It is certainly a song that would sound at home in bigger venues. Certainly, it's a rather pleasant listen.
9. Woo Woo
The shortest song on the album, easily distinguishale by a simply "woowoo...woowoo" that heralds the return of swaggering, jerky riffs. Particulary pleasant is the jerkiness as Simon Neil chants "I. Will. Love. You. For the rest of my life" over some fiddly guitar and a stonking stop-start bassy punch. It could use with being longer but it is certainly delightful.
10. Picture A Knife Fight
The church organ used in the very first song some 85 minutes ago is back, and used to great effect to pin down the riffs to the ground. There's a stronge sense of purpose and urge to this one, which is raised by the organ to pleasingly melodramatic levels. A rousing cry of "We've got to stick together" is a good high to end the record on.
The songcraft on show here is very well done. Even if some songs are not strong as others, the weakest song is still very well put together and despite one song feeling a little barer than promised. Naturally, a lot of the more experimental touches stand out here and, as is the case with double albums, an 11-14 album would have worked just as well.
But fair play to Biffy for making such an album - as well as having the unenviable task of sifting through the 45 songs they reportedly wrote. Although all the songs here are well crafted, some do tend to sag a little while others are a lot more attention grabbing and masterful, and there have certainly got a work they can be proud of with plenty to admire.
7.9/10
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