People often overlook just how much Biffy Clyro were doing at their commercial peak. It was Only Revolutions that stuck them there after years of admirably constant crossover success, spawning their three UK Top 10 hits that all felt true to what this band is and was. Yes, Many Of Horror was the clear chart-bothering ballad (evidenced by its X Factor cover by 2010’s unsurprisingly short-lived ‘winner’ Matt Cardle), but Mountains and That Golden Rule were both weird, off-kilter little songs that the upper echelons of the charts don’t tend to welcome. Mountains specifically ended up as one of the biggest songs of 2008 in the UK, and arguably remains one of Biffy Clyro’s signature songs to this day.
The reason why it’s worth bringing that up is because that late 2000s / early 2010s era really defined what Biffy Clyro as a ‘mainstream rock’ band looked like, and it’s something they’ve not really done a good job at maintaining. After 2013’s Opposites that managed to make an event from an overstuff, all-over-the-place double album, there’s never been the same sort of crossover spark with Biffy Clyro’s releases. None of them have been bad, either, mind, but whereas you could once rely on monster enormo-anthems delivered with the mischievous spirit of a band raised on Fugazi and The Red House Painters, that wasn’t there so much.
It makes the tales of burnout following their two lockdown albums seem all the more believable, honestly. They were knocked out in quick succession and didn’t leave much of a mark at all, leaving Simon Neil to channel the extremities of his creative mojo into his new band Empire State Bastard, and leave the kind of crater that Biffy Clyro hadn’t in over a decade. Their 2023 debut Rivers Of Heresy is a phenomenal album, forged from noise and grindcore abrasion that’s fitted with the pedigree of Slayer’s Dave Lombardo handling its percussion. It’s also the most exciting and excitable that Neil has sounded in ages, a fact made all the clearer by how much Futique appears to shrink into its shadow.
That’d be true of any post-Opposites Biffy Clyro album; it’s not exclusive to this one. They’ve all had the scale to reach every corner of their arena stomping grounds, but the same personality of old has been lacking, and Futique is no different. And it’s only after so many goes that you realise that capacity in which that’s true, especially bookended by Futique which might suffer from it the most chronically. Jonathan Gilmore’s production CV of Nothing But Thieves and The 1975 doesn’t spark a lot of confidence in progressive alt-rock angularity making a return, and sure enough, Futique is miles away from that. It’s probably their slickest album for how much energy is funneled into whooshing guitars and light synth sprinklings to emphasise a modern pop-rock border. At the peak of that is Dearest Amygdala, whose jumpy flourishes and pop stabs almost feel like The 1975’s spores spreading through a superficially big rock song.
The consolation is that Biffy Clyro still have a really high floor for this sort of thing, and the talent for that to glow through regardless of a ‘less-than-ideal’ sound. Sure, it’d be nicer for Goodbye and A Thousand And One to have a more organic power-ballad swell, but Neil’s emotive underplaying as an anchor point works wonders regardless. On the opposite side of that scale, it’s what makes A Little Love the prime lead-single candidate, encased in the sort of jubilant synth pulse to match its guitar walls and a sentiment as humanly appreciable as “With a little love, we can conquer all”. And that’s not to say there aren’t out-and-out rock moments that stand out, either. Hunting Season is an ironclad Biffy hit if there ever were one, and True Believer and Friendshipping transmogrify their gloss into the rock opulence that’s more this band’s standard now.
There’s enough like that to where, for its scattered underwhelming moments, Futique is never outright bad or unenjoyable. Perhaps it’s not the refresh it was designed to be, but between the aforementioned Hunting Season and deeper cuts like Shot One and It’s Chemical!, there’s another few shards to add to the mosaic of Big Biffy Bangers™️ that is their usual setlist. Still, it’d be nice for the intrigue to come back alongside that. It’s all well and good to shoot for the stars through raw size, but the edge is what makes even the most accessible and mainstream of Biffy Clyro’s fare transcend that. The closest that Futique gets is the lurch of Shot One led by James Johnson’s thicker bass; moments of sharper snarl on True Believer; and the simmering, festering Woe Is Me, Wow Is You, the closest thing to an outright oddity on this album.
And even when coming from a perspective of not hating what’s being done here at all, that’s a disappointment. It used to be something you could count on Biffy Clyro for, even on their most unashamedly big moments. But stick anything on Futique next to the real mainstream jewels in their catalogue, and they’re not as weird or accessible. It’s almost positioned as the yin to Empire State Bastard’s yang now, where that’s the vehicle to press forward and let any boundaries shatter, while this can pull in indie personnel and attempt to fit within that angle. It’s not the best depiction of what Biffy Clyro have to offer—not by a long shot—and though far from a death knell, there’s not a lot to ring out in victory either. They were the mountain, and they were the sea, but maybe more than ever, they’ve taken that away from themselves.
For fans of: Nothing But Thieves, You Me At Six, Twin Atlantic
‘Futique’ by Biffy Clyro is out now on Warner Music.
Words by Luke Nuttall
