The Singles Jukebox

Your editor would shitpost here as per tradition, but she has reached her metaphorical-newspaper-to-face quota for the month already…

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[4.00]

Scott Mildenhall: You see, they say living is a problem because everything dies, but Biffy Clyro seem to have their place on the Radio 1 playlist in perpetuity. Are they still gaining new fans, in numbers? Well it doesn’t matter, because they are eternal. That status clearly allows them the room to do absolutely anything they like, and in this case that’s a bombastic pastiche of 21st century rock music in its entirety, but mostly of Muse and themselves. “Visceral”/”habitual”/”animal”/”carnival” — didn’t they already do “magical”/”wonderful”/”biblical”/”invisible” a couple of years back? Too right they did. When Muse long ago descended into self-parody the nonsense that ensued was sometimes thrilling, so this new extra-layered satire promises great things.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: I enjoy the fact that the Biff boys have emerged from their own collective anuses to now sound like they’re doing one of Muse’s slower songs, but faster. But the urgency that would have justified “I’m a fucking animal,” isn’t there. Matt Bellamy would have pumped up the bass. So these guys should have too. As usual, it’s a catchy riff, but I can’t forgive the ape noises at the end.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: No, we can’t keep it.
[2]

Cassy Gress: The riff from Muse’s “Unnatural Selection” combined with something from US rock radio circa 2003. Aside from the fact that this reminds me of music videos with strobe lights and track suits and white guys grimacing, I can’t in good conscience give a good score to a song that sounds like it will inspire abusers to blame it on their uncontrollable animal natures.
[1]

Hannah Jocelyn: Biffy Clyro are classified as “prog-pop”, which should please the side of me which shares my dad’s love of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. So why does this just sound like a marginally edgier Foo Fighters? I thought that was just because Rich Costey produced it, that maybe they just sold out, man, but this is somehow a comparison that’s plagued this band for years. Definitely not the hypothetical Rabbit Lies Down On Broadway band I imagined.
[4]

Katie Gill: The first person to make an In-N-Out burger reference gets a newspaper to the face. That aside, this song suffers way too much from “well shit, I know that it sounds like something, but I can’t place what it sounds like.” Foo Fighters, maybe? I hope Biffy Clyro get good royalties when this song inevitably ends up on Guitar Hero.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Cursing is telling, not showing.
[4]