Biffy Clyro

2007 was the year the tortoise overtook the complacent hare and claimed the glory. Faced with a musical climate of TV talent freakshow contestants momentarily setting the gossip world aflutter before plunging back into obscurity, and fame hungry starlets publicly unravelling in front of the paparazzi, the alternative came in the shape of ‘Puzzle,’ the fourth album by Ayrshire rock trio Biffy Clyro, which exploded to propel the band out of the underground where they’d been honing their craft and into the mainstream consciousness. The gold-selling major label debut went on to shift over 250,000 copies, to the delight of the loyal and passionate fanbase who had been willing them on for the past decade. An overnight success story, this is not.

Biffy Clyro came together in 1995 in a school in Kilmarnock, just outside of Glasgow, when childhood friends Simon Neil (vocals/guitar) and twins James (bass/vocals) and Ben Johnston (drums/vocals) started playing music together. United by a love of underground, experimental rock and post-hardcore bands such as Braid and Karate, along with the starrier likes of Guns N’Roses and Metallica, they quickly honed their own unique sound, a mind boggling mix of off-kilter tempos, itchy, unpredictable guitars, soulful choruses and feral screams, sewn together into a strange tapestry of sound that sat resolutely apart anything else being made at the time, both in spirit and - thanks to their admirable refusal to uproot from their hometown for the dog eat dog music community of London - geographically too.

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