Biffy Clyro - Opposites

It was with some supposition that Opposites would be Biffy Clyro's first proof of mainstream success: the album that launched them into a world of stadium tours, inescapable TV montages and the victims of thousands of "I prefer their early stuff"s and "they've sold out!"s. That their 2009 schmaltz-fest Many of Horror was chosen as the X Factor winner's single the very next year came as something of a surprise, and its renaming as Matt Cardle's When We Collide (for music fans so inattentive that they're only capable of buying songs whose choruses begin, rather than end, with the title) quite justifiably rubbed up their fans the wrong way. Alas, he's already a nobody now, and Biffy continue to grab #1s with this, their sixth studio album.

Originally pitched back in 2011 as a pair of albums, Opposites is a double-LP with separate titles - The Land at the End of our Toes and The Sand at the Core of our Bones. It's not the first time something Simon Neil's been involved with that had such an official-sounding gimmick: his 2005 Marmaduke Duke sideproject debut was dubiously split into three parts of When the World... explodes, implodes and corrodes. It sounds a lot more exciting than it really is. But is this their concept-epic in the same vein of Queen's Night at the Opera? In an interview with BBC's Newsbeat Neil revealed:

"We're not putting limits on this record (...) Anything we wanted to try, we've been able to try."

That, and the number of tracks (20), would suggest that there's a real mishmash of experimentation here. A name like Opposites surely calls to some kind of polarising, exhausting creative epic, right? By the time the starry, pretty but ultimately bland 'Different People' gets out of the way you should have some sad awareness that this isn't quite the case. Instead, what follows is a series of fine, unassuming attempts at hooks and shticks that would've been better off just left unpolished. You can tell the "drip, drip" moments were add-ons to 'Black Chandelier', and sentiments are left as vague as "take care of the ones that you love" ('Opposite'). The moments they ditch the romantics are often the most exciting, if you'll forgive the exhausted musical observation. 'The Joke's On Us' is a contemplative, energetic piece that - if you look past rhyming "you can't say I didn't warn ya" with "California" - at least stretches their songwriting capacities.

Unfortunately, for most of the two discs the greater attention has been paid to carving out some faux-inspirational, uplifting Many of Horror moments. The strings on 'Biblical', the harp-like solemnity of 'The Fog' and the all-encompassing crescendos of 'The Thaw', whilst indeed quite gutsy and attention-grabbing, are all songs we've seen and heard before to varying degrees of 'epic'. Indeed, aside from 'Modern Magic Formula' (which fittingly muses "I don't know how much more of this I can stand" over a quite Bloc Party-sounding backing), it's all very exhausting.

The second disc only expands upon this to a more dulling extent: 'Accident Without Emergency', 'Pocket' and 'Victory Over the Sun' are fraught with boredom, and the chorus of 'Woo Woo' sounds like the theme tune to a hospital sitcom.

It might've been predicted to launch them somewhere between Muse and Coldplay in its scope and singalong crowdpleasing abilities but there's such a weird youthfulness and twee gathering of songwriting here that it comes off more like a 30 Seconds to Mars record. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a bit of a step down for the band creatively. The album is effectively treading water, and hoping that some of its prettier moments will continue to get picked up by impressionable fluttering hearts. Maybe I'd have been better off reviewing the single-disc version.

Rating: 5/10
Highlights: Modern Magic Formula, Opposite, Biblical
Avoid: Victory Over the Sun, Accident Without Emergency, Sounds Like Balloons, The Thaw, Pocket

Artwork Watch: I don't think the Dali family need be worried.
Up next: Tegan and Sara