Biffy Clyro
A Celebration Of Endings

There has been a lot of activity in the Biffy Clyro household over the past year.

Only fifteen months after the soundtrack for the film “Balance, Not Symmetry” and four years since the last “canonical” studio album, namely the more than good “Ellipsis,” Simon Neil and company return to the spotlight with this new “A Celebration Of Endings”: a bittersweet title that evokes contrasting sensations, exactly like the eleven tracks that make up this ninth studio work, produced together with the band by Rich Costey (historically associated with Muse).

Compared to the previous work, this time the band pushes more on the rock side of their offering; of course, there are still more relaxed episodes like the latest single “Space” and the beautiful “Opaque” (a sort of natural continuation of the older “God & Satan”), but the guitars become quite sharp on more than one occasion.

Think of the opener “North Of No South,” which recovers part of the atmospheres of the Scots’ early works (just like the frenetic “The Pink Limit” wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the essential “Only Revolutions”), or the other two singles “End Of” (with a central bridge in full alt-metal style) and “Weird Leisure,” the latter full of fun stop and go moments.

The usual skillful melodic construction, an art in which frontman Neil (author of all the songs) is by now an able craftsman, is apparent in episodes like the beautiful “The Champ,” which starts as a piano ballad and then progressively explodes in an irresistible rhythmic crescendo somewhat in Muse style (more or less along the lines of “Black Holes & Revelations”).

The lead single “Instant History” (released months ago, given the postponement of the album due to Covid-19) is just a bait for the radio, with its stride clearly inspired by certain Janet Jackson tunes, but it doesn’t represent the overall sound of the tracks at all.

The real gem, however, comes at the end: it’s the formidable mini-suite “Cop Syrup,” which starts as hyper-aggressive indie rock and then unfolds into very airy instrumental openings dominated by strings.

Could this be a trail for an interesting future shift? For now, Biffy pleases and convinces like this; we’ll see what happens later.

Best track: Cop Syrup