Biffy Clyro
The Myth Of The Happily Ever After

“The Myth of the Happily Ever After” is the tenth album by Biffy Clyro, and this fact alone is already incredible; a record that surprisingly manages to outperform the more catchy “A Celebration of Endings” (of which it was meant to be the younger sibling, with a dual release later revisited) and also reaches the extraordinary achievement of marking the Scottish trio's best work in recent years.

It's an objective fact that the band of the restless Simon Neil and the Johnston brothers is among the most inspired in the current European scene, but with this work, the result was perhaps beyond expectations.

From progressive to art rock with some R&B nuances, the work is a stunning mix of vocal and sound art, featuring the roar of the single "A Hunger in your Haunt", which, together with the complex "Errors in the History of God", manages to bring prog to a mainstream level as rarely seen in recent years.

Having long abandoned and now definitively given up the nostalgic paths of grunge, the more intimate tracks like "Holy Water" and "Existed" refer to a more romantic rock plan, while "Haru Urara" and "Unknown Male 01", the first successful single released from the album, are as close as it gets to the controversial Arena rock phenomenon. On this aspect, it must be pointed out that arena music is almost becoming an inexorable wear and tear. Too many bands, even prominent ones, have found the shortcut of stadium choruses, with results not always credible; however, this is not the case for the Scottish trio, which manages to avoid falling into the cauldron of sonic and vocal banalities, also thanks to lyrics that analyze the complex mechanisms of human relationships, helping to avoid the pitfall of clichés.

Overall, "The Myth of the Happily Ever After" is the result of a work that may not be to everyone's taste, but is objectively designed to perfection, with world-class writing and production, the deserved achievement of a band that can no longer be ignored by a substantial portion of the public, even the general audience. In this case, letting go of a good deal of subjectivity, and meticulously using the term, I do not consider it misleading to call it a masterpiece of contemporary rock, at least for how the genre continues to present itself in years lacking brilliance and healthy aggression. Finally, it’s worth highlighting the warning of the closing track "Slurpy Slurpy Sleep Sleep", which with a hypnotic effect reminds us not to waste time and love everyone. With “The Myth of the Happily Ever After”, Biffy Clyro demonstrate their desire to go beyond all boundaries, from the complex ones of human relationships to the ambitious ones of global landscapes, aiming to seek the approval of a as heterogeneous audience as possible.