If you've boned up on your rock handbook, the game plan goes roughly like this: create buzz with early gigs and get press onside; ensure early singles receive great press and build the fanbase; release stonking debut album and tour incessantly; release follow-up album full of songs written before the first and continue on the treadmill. Then, struggle with that 'difficult' third album, lose ground and fall prey to diminishing returns and an, ah, selective appeal.
Obviously nobody told Scots' noiseniks BIFFY CLYRO about this copybook approach. You want evidence? OK, previously they've paid their time-honoured dues slogging around the toilet circuit and releasing mediocre-to-average records (two LPS and numerous forgettable EPS) and generally being the sort of band people will hear of, go "Funny name" and walk away from.
What we (and I include my previously underwhelmed self in this number) didn't expect was for them to suddenly get good on us and make an album that will actually do well. Confounded? You probably will be. But you'll also be heartened to hear BC morphing into a pretty cool rock band en route.
Admirably, they haven't smoothed too many edges, and - if anything - they sound darker than before. However, there's a powerfully compelling feel to many of "Infinity Land"s best moments that's a real credit to the band's team playing, Simon Neil's improved songcraft and producer Chris Sheldon's ability to bring out the best in people. If you have names like Therapy? and Foo Fighters in your collection, you'll know what I mean.
The album opens with recent smash hit single "Glitter And Trauma", with its' rip-roaring riffs, wired'n'strung Anglophile Fugazi moves and that brilliant, disco-bothering chorus. The idea of Biffy ram-raiding the Top 40 is still hard to swallow, but when it's with a tune as uncompromising as this, it's hard not to applaud boisterously.
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Much of the album employs a similar, riffed-up, Math-rock approach, with propulsive goodies like "Some Kind Of Wizard", chilling new single "My Recovery Injection" and the bitten-off fury of "Strung To Your Ribcage" all sounding like updated, 21st century versions of Therapy? or Shellac in their prime. These are all excellent blasts of energy, although in places ("Only One Word Comes To Mind", "The Kids From Kibble And The Fist Of Light") the ridiculous number of time changes grates horribly and ensure some of the tracks miss the train to Tune Central.
Lyrically, also, Neil's songs can be too impenetrable by half. I love the breathy acapella of "There's No Such Man As Crasp", but I've arse all idea what they're actually on about. Meanwhile, I'm led to believe that "There's No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake" loosely translates as "you don't judge a book by the cover", but the semaphore is tough to crack in Biffy's world. Fortunately, in this case, the tune's bloody ace and the fact Simon shrieks through the song like Beelzebub's trying out a new Zippo on his arse is a serious bonus.
Still, as Neil sings during "Only One Word Comes To Mind", "these words won't help you if you're looking for answers", so perhaps we shouldn't try to hard to join up the lyrical dots when visiting "Infinity Land". What is important is that with their third LP Biffy Clyro are sounding like a force to be reckoned with. In this world of guerrilla gigging urchins, they are nicely anachronistic and suddenly well worth keeping a keen eye on.
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