Towards the end of school and at the start of college, I was friends with a guy called Ben. He played guitar in a bunch of bands with other mutual friends and was naturally very good at it. I remember walking away from college one day towards the bus and him telling me about this great band he'd gotten into called Biffy Clyro. He said if I gave him a blank MiniDisc he'd give me a copy of their debut album, so I gave him one the next time I saw him (it was strange, usually people just lent you the cd, but this was the first (and only) time Ben and I exchanged music, so I guess that was just the way he rolled). He also included some songs by this local band I'd recently seen him play with called Fidget. Somewhere in my collection of old MiniDiscs, I still have that. It's funny, Ben wasn't a huge part of my life, but did introduce me to a band who would go on to become huge.
I enjoyed Blackened Sky from the off - Joy.Discovery.Invention was instantly enjoyable - the vocals perfectly smooth (but not annoying) and the music matched it so well. The drum beat throughout the verses of 27 carries the song and falls away just in time for the chorus to break. Justboy and The Go-Slow have these choruses that absolutely soar. Throughout there's a mix of influences that kept you on your toes - sometime indie, sometime punk-rock. It's quite a stunning debut album.
For me, the real star of Blackened Sky was always (and always will be) 57. Many years ago I went on a month long road-trip through central Australia with ten friends. I couldn't drive at the time so helped in the only way I could; I made mix cds for the drive. Some went down well, others not so well, but one in particular stood out - on one cd I included 57 by Biffy and everyone fell in love with it. It started with my friend Christian humming it one day as we set up the tents and trying to sing the words that he'd badly misunderstood (he's Austrian, so there's a language barrier). From there, we kept listening to it and it became a staple of the trip. Afterwards a bunch of people asked for a copy of it. In the UK Biffy were becoming a bigger name, but in the Australian outback I was introducing them to a new audience. The song is incredible - it takes that idea of falling away just before the chorus break from 27, but does it a billion times better - the "do-do-do-do-do" whisper in the break is perfect and the chorus, like so many on the album, is huge.
Strangely, despite loving the album, I pretty much ignored Biffy for the best part of ten years that follwed. I remember hearing a single from their second album and thinking it was terrible. I've not even listened to the albums they've released since, which is pretty bad of me. I just assumed they'd gone shit and I was too busy getting to a string of other genres. At some point they became the biggest band in the UK and I felt pleased for them. Then in 2011 I saw them play Milton Keynes Bowl with the biggest band in the world, the Foo Fighters. It was a great show and I understood why they'd gotten so big.
At some point they announced they were reissuing their albums with bonus discs and I thought it'd be nice to have Blackened Sky on vinyl. It wasn't by any means an essential purchase, so I didn't do anything about for a long time, until I found this at the Independent Label Market in London. There had been far fewer bargains and exciting purchases than the last time I went, so it seemed like a good time to pick this up. It's a nice double purple vinyl and it's cool having all the extra songs. Not being a mega-fan, they don't add a huge amount for me. They're nice, and there are some interesting moments (Hope For An Angel, Instructio4, Being Gabriel - the latter being such classic early-2000's UK alt-rock). Annoyingly, no download card, so they don't get played as much as they might otherwise.
I imagine I'm in the minority of people who have this record on their shelves without the rest of the Biffy back-catalogue next to it. Maybe I should make more of an effort. Or maybe I'll just listen to 57 on repeat instead.
Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 21
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Independent Label Market
When: 12/07/14
Colour: Purple
Etching: none
mp3s: no
