SOUND JUDGEMENT

THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED

A CELEBRATION OF ENDINGS

BIFFY CLYRO HHH HH THIS new set sits among Biffy Clyro’s tightest, best and most streamlined albums.

No longer the emotive tricksters of 2009’s Only Revolutions and 2013’s Opposites, the Scottish alternative rock titans opt for serious experimentation, ambition and anger. What the album lacks in humour it make up in fervour, with opener North Of No South fusing barbershop-style vocals with a driving motorik rhythm. Album closer Cop Syrup builds layers of jangling guitars and rising strings until it crescendos with screaming and crashing guitars.

URSA MAJOR

MARSICANS HHH HH URSA Major, the debut offering from Northern boys

Marsicans, bursts open with soaring guitars tracked over catchy riffs and hard hitting bass. This expansive, 16-song tracklist could be a blur of their happy go-lucky, pop-rock sound – but it often swoops into slower paces. It’s peppered with interludes that give breathing space to get the guns fired up again, so the album isn’t all one big monster stomp of huge sound. It’s a well-constructed feat. Not just another indie pop band – Ursa Major pack a punch. It’s whimsical indie rock at its best.

EVEN IN EXILE

JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD HHHH H A CONCEPT album about the life and death of Chilean folk singer and activist Victor Jara, Even In Exile is a labour of love for James Dean Bradfield.

The Manic Street Preachers frontman sets to music words written by poet Patrick Jones – brother of his bandmate Nicky Wire – to evoke the defiance and bravery of Jara. The man who served as a cultural ambassador for President Salvador Allende’s government was tortured and murdered after the US-backed coup that installed Augusto Pinochet as dictator in September 1973.

Much of the album is impressionistic rather than purely biographical – and three of the 11 tracks are instrumentals. Elsewhere, there are enough guitars and soaring choruses to keep Manics fans happy.