Biffy Clyro/Pulled Apart By Horses
Roundhouse, London
31/07/2010

At the start of the month we watched Foals, now we’ve progressed to Pulled Apart By Horses: good call, iTunes Festival organisers! Grrreat call, actually, since the Leeds lads are a thoroughly blistering opening to this evening, what with their likable larking (they’re notably un-intimidated given the scale of the venue, and Tom’s “who wants to hear a song about being punched by a gypsy?” is nothing if not a memorable introduction), inviting cryptic yelping and wholly combustible hardcore instincts. ‘High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive’ is a wry and wiry fireball of confused stop-start fury, ‘Back To The Fuck Yeah’ – clearly one of the singles of the year – is a call-and-response treat and a finer post-Nirvana hurricane than even much of 1992 itself produced, and, really, the whole performance is more screechingly, scuffedly alive than much modern metal even dares aspire to.

Indeed, the galloping pace of events carries into Biffy Clyro’s emergence to such a degree that ‘That Golden Rule’ almost threatens to slalom excitedly out of their grasp on a couple of occasions. Their clutch of the reins is fearsomely firm soon enough after that, mind you, resulting in the sort of greatest-hits fiesta that seemed like fantasy five years ago and sounds fantastic now; sure, they might not be the banteriest of bands, but, when their canon’s erupting to this degree, who’s complaining? So ‘Mountains’ makes full, fulsome use of their decision to blow their entire shirt budget on an imaginary orchestra, ‘God And Satan’ is the stuff of bewitching be-fanged glee, ‘Living Is A Problem…’ is a series of majestic knockout punches putting many a soaring string section to shame, and ‘Bubbles’ is somehow both laconic and frenetic, its righteous rock tapestries getting beautifully entwined with Simon’s touchingly fierce sing-song burr. If anything, our only misgiving would be that their seeming resolution of the struggle between their penchant for difficult noise and their knack for a colossal tune has left them pleasing the crowd more than themselves, but even that’s a testament to a lovable generosity. That the Biff can remain this relentless a source of joy is adorably reassuring; that the Horses virtually outran them, however, is absolutely revelatory…

Iain Moffat