07.

Biffy Clyro

Opposites

The first eligible record that I bought this year, Opposites has lasted the course fairly well seeing that it came out in January.  Given that it’s a double album, there’s so much on show here that it was always likely that a good chunk of it would stick.  They’re too talented for it not to.  But that’s also the downfall of Opposites: there’s no quality control, and 20 tracks (22 on my iTunes special release version!) is just too many.  The record could have been cut by 6 or 7 tracks and it probably would have come closer to the top of the list had it been.  The dreary ‘The Fog’, for one, could have been lost and I’m sure nobody would have noticed.  There are a few others.  I’m not even an especially big fan of the overplayed ‘Black Chandelier’ (although the chorus is admittedly pretty good).  For every duffer, though, there are three or four absolutely essential tracks on Opposites, and overall it’s a super record that I have played an awful lot.  My favourites are the pounding riff of ‘Stingin Belle’, the soaring ‘Victory Over the Sun’, and – best of all – ‘Sounds Like Balloons’, which has a jarring riff that’s as good as anything on Only Revolutions.  This record as a whole doesn’t come close to competing with that one, but it’s still another super offering by a band that’s both mainstream and experimental all at once.  

Sample track: ‘Victory Over the Sun’