Always more than a punk band, Idles have continued their rock evolution, now resolved to "discard the lure of generational nihilism for a more benevolent and unifying force: love." This doesn't mean their music has gone soft. Singer Joe Talbot, guitarist Mark Bowen, bassist Adam Devonshire, drummer John Beavis, and guitarist Lee Kiernan have learned to vary the textures and tempos and write with the wisdom that inevitably comes with age and experience. In "Gift Horse" ripsaw guitar and aggressive vocals roar over a pounding tempo.  Talbot forcefully delivers his gospel: "My baby she so great/ I wake up grateful every day/ My baby is beautiful/ All is love and love is all," before a final snarl of "Fuck the king/ He ain't the king/ She's the king." "Dancer" opens with a grand flourish of violins before jumpy, bass-led dance floor filler allows Talbot to paint a picture of himself: "Shoulders back/ Chest out/ I'm poised/ Like a god damn ape," reveling in the sexual energy and rhyming "sweat" with "pirouette" along the way.  James Murphy and Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem sing "Collide us while we work it out" as Talbot shouts "Hold the phone/ Hip to hip/ Cheek to cheek." It's an inspired fusion. Set to an edgy, inconsolable rhythm, "Grace" returns Talbot to Tangk's emotional north star, singing "No god/ No king/ I said love is the thing" which eventually modulates its way to an abrupt end. That's followed by the rocking guitar squall of "Hall & Oates" where a quiet break features Talbot— always more of a singer than a pure howler—eloquently vocalizing, before a screech of feedback leads to another sudden finish. Opening with cymbals, guitar distortion and a resonant bass line, "Gratitude" eventually revs up with vehemence, but generally lacks the anger and abandon of the past. After brooding "More old bloody murder from/ A bastard's old cake hole/ Rip up cuticles/ And moron's wistful/ And acid to wash my soul," Talbot reveals with urgency, "I'm soft to the core …. Hold my hands up/ And thank you/ Gratitude/ Hold my hands up."  The moody vocal dirge "Monolith'' closes out the album with an unexpected saxophone solo. Tangk is raw mastery and convincing finesse from these self-described truth-seekers who continue to brilliantly refine their pursuit of what they call "the grim persistence of joy and hope and love and wonder as long as that's what anyone needs to survive." © Robert Baird/Qobuz

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 /TiVo

Los Angeles-based noise-rap trio clipping. have come a remarkably long way since Jonathan Snipes (formerly of irony-killing duo Captain Ahab) and William Hutson (aka noise-drone artist Rale) established it as a remix project in 2009. Since the addition of MC Daveed Diggs (also of True Neutral Crew, along with Signor Benedick the Moor and Deathbomb Arc founder Brian Kinsman), the group self-released 2013's well-received mixtape Midcity before signing with Sub Pop for their full-length debut, 2014's CLPPNG. Studio wizard Snipes has since written soundtracks for numerous films, Hutson completed a Ph.D. in theater and performance studies, and Diggs achieved fame as an original cast member of the hit musical Hamilton. While CLPPNG (so titled because its lyrics lacked the most common word in hip-hop, "I") subverted mainstream hip-hop conventions and was equally influenced by Three 6 Mafia and academic electro-acoustic composition, Splendor & Misery is exponentially more ambitious. The album is essentially an opera about the only survivor of a slave revolt, who is trapped on a spaceship traveling throughout the universe. The story can be likened to an outer space relative of Drexciya's underwater mythology, and it draws equally from 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as the brilliant Afrofuturist science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, even going so far as to reference characters from her novels in the songs' lyrics ("Air 'Em Out" mentions the Oankali alien race from the Xenogenesis trilogy, while "Baby Don't Sleep" namechecks the mutants known as Clayarks from the Patternist series). While CLPPNG and subsequent outtakes EP Wriggle were more explicitly club-influenced, the sound design on Splendor & Misery is far more experimental and less rhythmic; at times it sounds like Diggs' complex, hyper-literate raps are being accompanied by industrial drone artists like :zoviet*france: or Lustmord. The beats echo the background noises of the spaceship, replicating clanking and whirring noises rather than resembling anything danceable. Only on a few moments do Snipes and Hutson interject Whitehouse-like power electronics and harsh noise. As dystopian as the album seems, there's an undeniable hopefulness present. A handful of tracks feature either gospel-inspired vocals ("True Believer" even quotes the 19th century slave song "I Know When I'm Going Home") or splintered church organ tones. Ultimately, the protagonist ends up celebrating an escape from society and finding freedom in his isolation. Devastating yet optimistic, Splendor & Misery is a stunning leap forward for clipping., and one of the most impressive albums of the year.© Paul Simpson /TiVo