First off, even though I am a new sub here, I LOVE Biffy. All I listen to on my hour long ride to work is Biffy Clyro. I have Opposites, Only Revolutions, Puzzle, Infinity Land, and (my personal favourite) Similarities on shuffle every work day to and from the office. I adore their music and they have shaped my personal songwriting as well as what I listen to nowadays. That being said, I am really not into Ellipsis. I've listened to it straight through a few times today. I like all of the songs a lot, dont get me wrong.
Blackened Sky is the debut studio album by Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro. Largely produced with the band by Chris Sheldon, it was released by Beggars Banquet Records on 10 March 2002. The album reached number 78 on the UK Albums Chart, and spawned four singles. A deluxe remastered edition was released in 2012, which featured, in addition to the original 12 album tracks, two songs from the band's.
I like People, Wolves of Winter, On a Bang, In the Name of the Wee Man, Herex, and Dont, Won't, Can't very much. There is just something about this album in particular that I can't put my finger on that doesn't feel right to me. The music seems less inspired than previous efforts. The production seems flatter with less emphasis on the raw, musical sound I've admired all these years. It doesn't feel like a rock band anymore. I feel like this post is going to get badly beaten, but I just want to know if I'm totally alone in this feeling.
I will always love Biffy, they are my absolute favourite, no question. I will grow to love this album too of course.
I just feel like something is very different with this effort. Does anyone here also have mixed feelings? Thanks for reading guys, hope you all understand. I repeat, I LOVE BIFFY. I really, truly do.
I don't hate. I totally agree. I love all incarnations of Biffy so far. The original trilogy was great, as was the new trilogy. And as much as I want to love Ellipsis, as much as I try to tell myself I love it, I just can't.
I get that they're making a pop album, and that's fine. Some of my favourite music is pop. Biggies top hits.
But this just feels directionless, over-produced and, quite frankly, not very good pop. Or anything, for that matter. There's some good tracks on there, but on a whole there's a number of tracks I'm distinctly 'meh' about.
It was the first Biffy album I listened to that didn't give me that magical feeling at any stage. Listened a good 10, 20 times since, and despite an initial growing on me around 5 listens in, it soon wore off. It's my least favourite album of theirs by quite a way.
So you aren't alone. But hey, I guess an artist can't paint a masterpiece every time. The weird thing is, by definition, I should've loved Ellipsis.
My tastes have been gradually shifting in a more Pop/R&B/Hip Hop direction for years now. When I heard Biffy were embracing that side of things, citing LEMONADE, Yeezus, and Death Grips as influences, I was excited. It should have been the album for me.
Instead, it just fell totally flat. Poor production, mixing, sequencing and generally underwhelming songwriting, in a nutshell. I love Biffy. I'll always love Biffy. But I get the feeling they were more interested in the production of this record than the actual songwriting. And then some of those more interesting production elements just got buried under the mix. It's probably a 6/10 album for me.
Good, but not great. I have no real desire to relisten to it after 20+ listens. There's some other amazing albums out there that deserve more attention, and it pains me to say that. As for sounding 'raw' and 'stripped back', to me it just sounds empty. There's a fine line between the two, and Ellipsis dances dangerously on the brink at times. Not their best effort, in my opinion.:( (and let me reiterate - I've loved everything Biffy have done. This isn't a pro 'old Biffy' stance.
It's a Biffy fan stance.). I definitely agree with you here. Some songs took a while to grow on me but then I liked them, but now I don't even find a need to go back and listen to it, and it's only been out just over a week.
Wee Man is great and I like Don't Won't Can't too, but overall it's not a memorable album, which is very different for me to say about Biffy. All of the interviews about how they tried anything and everything in the studio and didn't worry about how it would sound live had me worried, and it definitely seems that that was a big problem for it. Still my favorite band and it's a good record, just a bit disappointed overall. I completely agree with your post, I was thinking the same thing whilst listening to the album on the way to work this morning.
I like it but there is just something, that I can't put my finger on, that is missing. Wolves of Winter, Animal Style and Re-Arrange are my personal favourites on the album but the rest of the songs just seem to happen. They are all O.K. But none grab me like the first listen of other albums. That being said, I can't wait for them to tour it, maybe it will grab me better live. I think that the key is that they wrote this album differently.
I saw Simon talking in a video somewhere about how for the previous albums they got together and wrote the songs instruments in hand, as if they were performing. But this albums they were much more reliant on recording one part, like drums, then gradually adding to that until they had a song. I agree that the former may be a better process for this band, producing more diverse and interesting musical choices, but i have to say i still rate this album for sure. I hate Ellipsis. And I mean, HATE it.
I absolutely adore Biffy. I've seen them countless times, their albums are on constant rotation for me and I've always found something to like about everything they've released, even if the last couple of albums don't appeal to me as much as the early work.
Right, now that's out of the way. Ellipsis is a bad album, or at least, to me it is. And I think a lot of it comes down to production.
The album lacks direction in a serious way. It's like they wrote a bunch of songs, then slapped them into a computer and said 'make them sound modern'. Nothing about this album feels remotely 'real'. I understand that they're claiming to be approaching recoding differently now, utilising the studio as a 'fourth member', but I think that fourth member has really killed the Biffy dynamic on this album. On A Bang is a perfect example. If that song was written by Biffy of old, they wouldn't have stuck some stupidly loud, irritating, synthesised bell noise over the chorus.
It saps the energy from the song really badly! Then take a song like Flammable. I don't like the song anyway, but the production makes it feel SO lifeless! The chorus sounds like they're all say around saying 'ahh, just play it as it is, be reyt'.
No artistic flair, no rock band edge, just bland, shit it out, pop rock. And bad pop rock at that. And of course, the less said about re-arrange the better, because I will rant for a long time. Agree with me, disagree with me, down vote me, whatever. I couldn't be more disappointed with this album if I forced myself to be.
Anybody want to buy a deluxe vinyl box set? Hey, I wouldn't worry too much about offending anyone, as you can see there are a lot here that agree with you, myself included.
Although there are some moments of brilliance that eclipse anything from the last two albums, I feel like Ellipsis is altogether one of Biffy's weakest albums, if not the weakest. That being said I still love them, they're still my favourite band.
Biffy Clyro Wiki
It's just that now with seven albums under their belt I'm not sure they'll ever recapture the magic they had 10-15 years ago. Definitely not their best album.
I think they might be fleshing out these new elements they've included in their sound and the next one will flow a lot better. The new songs were great live though and I've always seen them as a live band. Some songs on Opposites didn't click for me until I heard them live. Also when I read about what happened in Simon's personal life before recording this, I felt the album made a bit more sense. Solid, but not their best would be my two cents.
Edit: Just listened to the special edition LP and read the lyrics while listening. Have to admit that the album is still growing on me. For me, the overproduction makes it extremely hard to get through it all without questioning certain aspects of it. For example, the 'du's' and 'woo's' on Herex stand out MASSIVELY to me - to the stage where despite it having an incredible chorus and bridge, I can't quite. Or even truly like it. Even Flammable, which I decidedly do love - has overproduction that makes me roll my eyes in the choruses. Howl is a smaller offender, but it's there.
It needed trimming a bit, and much less refining. The strange thing for me is that overall I think it's an excellent album - but there it isn't the consistency that makes it stand out or follow on.
Biffy Clyro Songs
WARNING opinion on the internet - I would take Small Wishes off the album, drop Herex (I know guys, sorry), Don't, Won't Can't and People to B sides (they're excellent songs, but not A. material) and close with Wee Man. Then you have Wolves - Friends - Animal - Rearrange - Medicine - Flammable - On a Bang - Howl - Wee Man.
9 track album. Somewhat of a statement made, that's an Ellipsis that stands out (IMO). I actuallly agreed with you at first, but my opinion kinda changed after more listens. I can't really put my finger on what makes Biffy special to me, but Ellipsis has it. I think the turning point for me was listening to Biffy on shuffle during a 5 hour drive. The new songs fit in perfectly as the poppier bits in their discography and I love them. I guess as a whole the album isn't as raw and musically interesting as I'd like, but I'm guessing the new B-Side will scratch that particular itch for me.