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Biffy Clyro have always been a pop band, that is to say from debut Blackened Sky through to do this latest offering their music has always had an intelligent grasp of pop sensibility.  Indeed, their first e.p. thekidswhopoptoday-
willrocktomorrow displayed their intentions to transform the climate of pop music into rockier, more angular climbs.  However this ‘pop-core’, as it has been rather lazily pigeonholed, whilst offering catchy hooks and sing-a-long melodies has always been forward thinking.  It has been this seemingly effortless ability of Biffy Clyro to create pop songs formed around dissonant, angular song structures (see The Vertigo of Bliss) that has won them legions of dedicated fans…that of course, and their relentless touring schedules.

Upon leaving independent label Beggars Banquet following the release of their last (and arguably most accomplished) album Infinity Land to join “we’re not really part of a massive corporation honest” subset of Warner Records 14th Floor Recordings, Biffy fans waited with baited breath to see how this big money contract could influence their characteristically no frills production.  First download only single, Saturday Superhouse, ushered in a new sound for Biffy – verse-chorus pop-rock with chugging drop D guitars devoid of any of Biffy’s previous spark.  Upon hearing the album, tracks such as Who’s Got A Match and the awfully contrived new single Folding Stars did little to restore the faith, and would sit more happily on a Foo Fighters compilation.  This is not to say that this reviewer would begrudge Biffy Clyro a shot at the mainstream, indeed much of their music has been chronically understated by the wider music community (singles such as Only One Word Comes to Mind).  However Puzzle just seems too forced, it reeks of a band nearing the end of their career exasperated with the minor successes offered by the music industry over the last ten years despite their gritty indie resolve.  Thus their olive-branch to the market forces of the music industry has been to create an album solely engineered around the creation of stadium filling ‘indie-rock’– however this comes across musically as superficial, melodramatic pomp.  The album is not, though, without its shafts of light that offer some hope to the future of Biffy Clyro.  In places the aforementioned pompous, grandiose new writing style manifests itself in gloriously bombastic consonance, Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies and 9/15ths with their staccato choral passages and thick orchestration being two cases in point.  Although entirely self indulgent these songs do show new progression in Biffy touched on previously by songs like With Aplomb, and one not dissimilar to the transformation of Muse from the spindly rock of Showbiz into the more recent neo-classical excess of Absolution.

Closing track Machines nullifies any of the above criticisms leveled at Puzzle.  A tender and sensitive love song, which harks back to the glorious Justboy B-side Breatheher.  Encouragingly, it seems to transcend those early songs in its compositional maturity – showing that whilst evidently aiming for mainstream success Biffy Clyro now are beginning to look like a band capable of it.  If it is the fate of Biffy to start filling stadiums, then there is no better song to prove their worth than this.
Although perhaps an aside from the album review itself I feel it is worthwhile to think back to the release of Blackened Sky.  At this time a live review of Biffy published in the NME argued that Biffy had the potential to be successful but they had to ‘decide on what genre they wanted to be and stick to it’.  As always, the NME could not have been further from the mark in understanding the magic of Biffy through their diverse sound and their ability to avoid being typecast – however it is true to say that now as the band have finally succumbed to one sound their success seems to have been confirmed.  Nice one, NME. 

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