Biffier than thou

Aversion.com
(5 out of 5)
If you listen to common wisdom – that of critics, most fans and the charts – the United Kingdom is no place for guitar players. It’s a land where Paul Oakenfold and Fat Boy Slim are national heroes, where prefabricated pop bands outnumber soccer teams, where wussified indie bands such as Belle and Sebastian and The Delgados are the envelope pushers. Heck, even the rock bands the Empire has imported, The Strokes, White Stripes and Hives, aren’t really shredders. No, loud, ear-splitting guitar is as foreign to the English as a good hook-and-ladder to a tight end.

Wait a minute! Guitar players haven’t been chased off the island by DJs and popsters – they’ve just kept a low profile, apparently. Biffy Clyro breaks out with a decidedly un-Anglo guitar noise that will put the old world back onto the rock’n’roll maps. Let’s count our blessings that the soulless dance brigade hasn’t killed off rock’s hold in the Old World. With loud, warm guitars that kick up the sort of impenetrable, though totally inviting, sort of noise that’s one part feedback-driven Hum and one part shoegazer-deep Slowdive, Blackened Sky brims with the sort of energy that’s all indie rock, grunge and powerful dynamics. Forget the mall-punk whine or the shrill sounds of garage rock. Biffy Clyro explodes with heavy arrangements that lack any of the crotch-rock stupidity usually associated with overworked amps, be it with fuzzed-out melodies that reek of ozone and sweat and scream for the return of raw rock ("The Go-Slow"), or with slow/fast dynamics that pick up on Seattle grunge and let the band’s overdriven choruses shine ("27").

Although the Scottish trio builds heavily on grunge foundations, it’s got the wits to keep itself from simply repeating history. While the roller-coaster dynamics of grunge are there, there’s no debt to metal (a longtime staple of the Northwest’s rock scene). Without the cock-rockin’ overtones to muddle things up, Blackened Sky takes the melodies of bands like Seafood and Coldplay and gives them some fangs.

- Matt Schild