Proving Scotland has more to offer than a shit football team, heroin and the chocolate covered sounds of Snow Patrol, Biffy Clyro, kings of the unlikely time signature return. Much like Idlewild remained a hidden gem for many until ‘The Remote Part’, ‘Infinity Land’ brims with ingenuity and character. If it was a Disney film think Beauty and the Beast. Taking churning hardcore, uncanny riffs and the articulate if unstable nature of Simon Neil, this is an album of elevated proportion. Typifying their penchant for the un-orderly, whether it’s the explosion of the tentative into a turbulent Cobain lacerated shriek in ‘Wave upon wave’, the undeniably uplifting chorus of ‘Strung to your Ribcage’ or the electric tease and thump of ‘Glitter and Traumas’ that opens the album with thundering authority. The trademark falsetto vocals of Simon Neil remain a stream of consciousness quality whilst carrying the quiet pain of defeat, and with wounded one liners ‘You complete’ me morphing into a barked into ‘Fucking say it, Fucking say it’ the schizophrenia is let loose once again. Combining the sublime with the strong, ‘Infinity Land’ is as beautifully shameless as it is rough and resonating. ‘There’s no such thing as a jaggy snake’ suggests, well, everything you’d expect it to be. Driving, indecipherable and off kilter, think Welsh derangers Mclusky in disguise. Not what you had? Ah, what’s in a name anyway? With stray moments coming courtesy of a solitary piano and glockenspiel combination in ‘The atrocity’ or the delicate romanticism of defeat in ‘Only one word comes to mind’, there’s solace to be found amidst the struggle. But don’t get too comfortable. Some bands grow into their sound, others mould it themselves. Sounds like Biffy Clyro are still experimenting and when an albums like a house of mirrors who needs to be pigeon holed?
P.S. And what’s a jaggy snake supposed to be? Answers on a postcard please.
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