The Myth of the Happily Ever After

by Biffy Clyro

Overview

While technically a companion work to 2020's A Celebration of Endings, Biffy Clyro's ninth studio album, the emotionally sanguine The Myth of Happily Ever After, stands on its own. Produced by Adam Noble and largely recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, the album bristles with a mix of frustration, anger, and yearning, all of which feel intrinsically linked to the turmoil surrounding the pandemic. It's a thematic state of emotion the band touched upon with A Celebration of Endings, but which they attack with a renewed sense of purpose here. Tracks like "A Hunger in Your Haunt" and "Unknown Male 01" are driving punk-prog anthems rife with a coiled and pent-up anxiety. Elsewhere, they take a more languid approach as on the shimmering "Separate Missions" with its crepuscular synth accents and falsetto melody evoking the paranoid romanticism of '80s bands like the Fixx and the Jam. Equally engaging are cuts like "Haru Urara" and "Existed," which find them dipping into '70s R&B grooves and airy post-punk balladry, respectively. Biffy Clyro have long been a band of extremes, crafting esoteric art rock epics one minute and melodic punk singalongs the next -- all the while aiming for a broad, gladiator-esque level of catharsis. It's that grasping for a unified release and the creeping feeling that society may never break free of its constraints that drive much of The Myth of Happily Ever After. As they sing on the album-ending "Slurpy Slurpy Sleep Sleep," "Life is a sad song/We only hear once/Please give it all that you've got/Before the rhythm stops." ~ Matt Collar

Product Details

Release Date:	10/22/2021
Label:	Warner Records
UPC:	0190296615030
Rank:	7880

Tracks

1. DumDum
2. A Hunger in Your Haunt
3. Denier
4. Separate Missions
5. Witch's Cup
6. Holy Water
7. Errors in the History of God
8. Haru Urara
9. Unknown Male 01
10. Existed
11. Slurpy Slurpy Sleep Sleep

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Biffy Clyro   Primary Artist
Simon Neil   Guitar,Violin,Vocals,Keyboards
Ben Johnston   Drums,Vocals,Percussion
James Johnstone   Bass,Vocals

Technical Credits

Biffy Clyro   Composer,Producer
Simon Neil   Composer,Lyricist
Adam Noble   Mixing,Engineer,Producer
Robin Schmidt   Mastering