Ayrshire trio Biffy Clyro's rise to fame reads like a pop morality tale. The band have triumphed over other faster-paced overnight sensations by plugging away for 15 years, clocking up endless gigs and support slots to the point where 2007's Puzzle album sold 250,000 copies. With the follow-up, Only Revolutions, released this week, they are finally poised to become seriously huge.
Loads of bands trudge around for years without getting anywhere, but the band their supporters greet with the bizarre slogan "Mon the Biffy!" seem to have cornered every market. Their music blends fairly obscure American angular guitar bands (from Fugazi to Jawbox) with two generations of grunge (Nirvana to Foo Fighters), emo, student-rock chanted choruses and prog-rock twiddles, ending up between the Cribs and Muse. One song even includes an Irish jig, presumably to incorporate one of the last potential fan bases that eludes them.
The band's live show is less nuanced than their records, which include orchestras and choirs. Here, they abandon subtlety for a sonic blitzkrieg. No "whoah-oh-oh-oh" is too obvious, no song is complete without cannon-fire drumming and a strobe-dazzling lightshow. When singer Simon Neil sings "I'm a fire and I'll burn tonight", he's illuminated by flame-red lights. When he mentions the sky, the lights dazzle blue and white. Such is their attention to glaringly obvious detail, you hope they don't introduce a song called Venue Washed Away By Flood.
However, the one-size-fits-all approach appeals to everyone from crop-haired men in metal T-shirts to tiny girls wearing black eyeliner, the latter succumbing to old-fashioned sex appeal when Neil removes his top to reveal a tattooed chest. But within the sonic barrage come lyrics of astonishing frankness and intensity – dark tales of depression and death, in particular that of Neil's mother. The terrific As Dust Dances, a lonely discourse on stardom, suggests Neil thinks about things more than the average rock god, and it's perhaps this that makes most connection. Few audiences are this vocal, and often the only way of telling Neil's voice from the crowd's is that the latter are more drunken. As the band pile into their catchiest tracks, such as the Proclaimers-like The Captain and softer ballad God and Satan, the gig becomes a sort of mass catharsis. World domination is a definite prospect – at least if audiences around the globe can take to the "Mon the Biffy!" chant.
At the University of East Anglia, Norwich (01603 508050; returns only), on Wednesday. Then touring.
