Maybe this is why Ghostride probably won’t be around for much longer, nobody seems to like them. Their songs are met with a miserable reception and a mere splattering of feeble claps. Let me paint the picture a wee bit; 5 guys with Ibanez guitars, dressed in black and screaming inaudibly…and they’re called Ghostride. There’s no need for a review, you just know they’re pish.

Hell is for Heroes on the other hand brighten everything up and re-inspire hope in the dying genre that is “zie metal”. Well they’re not quite metal, but if the organisers of the Download Festival are willing to call Billy Idol and Feeder “indie” then we can call them what we want in my opinion. They stage dive and do hand stands on the drum kit. They are entertaining and their music is completely inoffensive and quite good fun. The set ends with a climactic “I Can Climb Mountains”, the song that broke the band into the mainstream, and replenishes our spirit after the musical atrocity that had preceded them.

But it’s not them that we’re here to see tonight and let’s face it, they’re always going to pail in comparison with the Biffy and their plethora of amazing tunes. As soon as the electro intro to “Glitter and Trauma” kicks in, everyone suddenly rises from the dead and starts to mosh frantically. Biffy have already toured their newest album, “Infinity Land”, this year so they were able to treat tonight’s show more like a celebratory, greatest hits set that lasted almost two hours. But still, that wasn’t an excuse to not play anything from the new album as it is just as good as anything else they’ve produced to date. The two other singles, “My Recovery Injection” and “Only One Word Comes to Mind”, got the teeny-boppers going and they sounded much less poppy and innocent than they do on CD. It was tracks, however, like the mass clap-along that is “Wave Upon Wave Upon Wave Upon Wave” and “The Kids From Kibble and The Fist of Light” that are the true highlights, that far surpass expectations and establish themselves as Biffy classics in their own rights. But there are

From debut album “Blackened Sky” we were treated with the likes of the wistful yet brutal “Joy.Discovery.Invention”, the harmonic glory of “Justboy” and the live classic “27”. Second album, “The Vertigo of Bliss” provided its equivalent of “Glitter and Trauma” in the form of “The Ideal Height”, the Biffy breakthrough song “Questions and Answers”, and, after five minutes of its creepy intro, the worryingly named, but brilliant, “Toys Toys Toys Choke Toys Toys Toys”. There are far too many songs to name individually but each is spectacular.

It’s difficult to class Biffy in a specific genre: are they hardcore or pop rock or emo or what? But this diversity in their music is the reason for the diversity in their fans and therefore it’s what makes Biffy so great. They don’t want to be pigeon-holed, they just want to make good music and that’s something they know how to do better than most. This isn’t just a passing fad, Biffy are national heroes and shall be cherished and loved for a long time yet. Legends in the making.

Review by Jason Edwards

www.biffyclyro.com
www.hell-is-for-heroes.net
www.ghostrideband.com

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