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Live Review
by SashaS
8-10-2004
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| Biffy Clyro: more goodniks from Scotland |
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Live: Biffy Clyro
Electric Ballroom, London
Thursday, October 7, 2004
Biffy Clyro: organic re-fertilization of nu-rock
From the first chord plucked tonight Biffy Clyro simply demonstrate they are a huge band. In sound, vision and attitude; they’ve quietly grown into this mean device of rock that is still trying to break out of its cult corner. [It surely is only matter of time, we hope for the sake of collective sanity and taste.] The three have everything ready to blind you with assortment of riffs, arpeggios, tempos, volume... No science here, it is all organic!
There are moments when they rival Foo Fighters at their most rocktastic, then drop it into emo-domain; there are tracks of fragmented nature, full of dynamics and several are of epic proportion - ready to re-start the anthemic-rock. Although there are only three of them, they sound like an outfit of twice as many members. And they also know - subtle musical nuances…
Billy Clyro’s London show follows merely days after their new album ‘Infinity Land’ hit the nation’s shelves but that hasn’t impeded fans’ being familiar already with the new songs to singalong. [This assembly even sings a-l-o-n-e, in perfect harmony, on few older cuts!] But, one thing has changed within the sell-out iGen crowd, the lighters-aloft for the most bonding moments; instead, mobie-snaps are clicked at the crucial instances!
Main singer [although all three provide vox duty] and guitarist, Simon Neil, looks like a rock star - naked torso, hair curtaining his face - but plays with a technique that derives as much from Jimmy Page as Andy Gill [of Gang of Four] over an array of tunes that vary from a dramatic minimalism of ‘Convex/Concave’ to the hymnal range of ‘57’, as rousing as several subliminal-commercials [if allowed]; new songs, such as ‘Glitter and Trauma’, lead us over the mountain passes of life and the valleys of after…
Whilst plenty of contemporary guitar bands only assuage the genre - most of them attempting Led Zeppelin as if they were creating ringtones - Biffy Clyro rock. Seriously. Large. Model. Not like the Leeds outfit Music that are charisma free, riff loaded without much melodies in their ‘songs’… Biffys make the inner rocker in the reporter go home as happy as if having had multi-orgasms.
As the title of their third album indicates, they write songs for infinity now. And they’re curving a slot in musical order without any hype but by quality of music. For now, stadium-sized in an intimate environ. H-o-t.
Tour dates (remaining):
09 October - Concorde 2, Brighton
11 October - Zodiac, Oxford
12 October - Rock City, Nottingham
13 October - Sugarmill, Stoke
14 October - Zero, Sheffield
15 October - Northumbria University, Newcastle
16 October - Brickyard, Carlisle
18 October - Moshulu, Aberdeen
19 October - Barrowlands, Glasgow
SashaS
8-10-2004
Biffy Clyro’s album ‘Infinity Land’ is released 04 October 2004 by Beggars
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