Brand New Band • Page 407

I think at this point we have a better chance of seeing a new Midtown album before we get one from Brand New.

 

Go listen to Puzzle, and bear in mind the album was written following the death of Simon Neil's mother Eleanor. Living is a Problem, Folding Stars & Machines are my favourites on the record, Some of the best mainstream rock music around, back when they kept a little bit of their weirdness from their early days (their first four albums are fucking strange but brilliant).


I missed half of Brand New annoyingly. Traffic absolutely fucked me. I was so pissed off, but luckily the second half of the set was good, and Biffy absolutely killed it and so in the end I wasn't too annoyed. Would like to have seen more deep cuts, as I think 8-10 songs from their new album was a bit much, but it was still fun as hell and even their worst songs were still great arena anthems. The amount of huge anthems they had to play was insane... Living Is A Problem, Folding Stars, Machines, The Captain, Bubbles, Biblical, Different People, Stinging Belle, Black Chandelier, Wolves of Winter... And don't even get me started on Many of Horror or Mountains...


After tonight, Brand New really need to come back to the UK, and I'm convinced they will. I could not have that be the final time seeing this band. I saw a surprising amount of people who knew who Brand New were, and were into them. So gutting that I saw so many Brand New fans who missed some of, or all of their set. This is why I dislike arena shows.

It did make me wonder what the aim of this tour was though. They sold out Alexandra Palace which is like 6k/7k last year, and while this venue is 12k, there can't have been more than 5k in there that early, and they were only on stage for 45 minutes. My only thought is that they wanted to hit a completely different market of fans who might be willing to take a gamble on a more complex band after seeing them live.

 

A new midtown album would actually blow my mind

 

There's a "leaked" Coachella lineup with BN on it. Fake?

 

yes, 100% fake

 

correct on all accounts ^

 

While I agree with the logic behind Brand New wanting to see what a different market thought of them, the o2 is 20K and most of the venues they hit were around that too. On the tour where they played Alexandra Palace, the rest of the venues they played were closer to 2000. This tour, whether we like it or not, is Brand New hitting venues they'd never be able to play themselves over here. It must be a nice experience for them to give fans a taste of what they'd be like on a big stage, possibly to play a one-off show over here next year as their final UK show.

 

Brand New, Glassjaw And Thrice: Wembley Arena - News - Rock Sound Magazine

I know you probably mean venues they'd be able to play themselves nowadays but still it was proper impressive they managed to do this back then even if it was a one off show.

 

Yeah I didn't want to reference the Wembley one because it was a while back and I wasn't entirely sure if it sold out or not. Completely agree though, Wembley is like the UK MSG equivalent and they headlined it by themselves!

 

I think it sold out or at least sold well but I'm not 100% sure. I still hate myself for not going to that, what a line up. To bad I was skint as hell at the time. Still the fact they managed to headline it regardless of it selling out or not is an incredible feat for a band like them.

 

I hope IIAN is on the new album as a secret track. Or that they put the intro drum roll in front of every track to troll people into thinking it's IIAN

 

Do you guys think we'll get the second half of Casino's new album before we get a new album from Brand New?

 

I didn't realize the EP was supposed to be half an album

 

Puzzle is the only Biffy album I have and I love it, oddly enough I've just never listened to anything else. Should I start at the beginning?

 

After Puzzle the production gets a bit "shinier" and they get a bit poppier, so if that sounds like your thing, go forward and check out their most recent three. There's some fantastic songs on all of them.

However, for my money their first four albums are as good anything, I think they're perfect. Production wise they're a bit rougher, they definitely muck around with song structures a bit, and are bit heavier or noiser. But, they've always been able to write absolute monster tracks. Songs like Justboy and 57 from the first album are just as hook filled as anything they've ever done.

They're a bloody wonderful band, so check out everything really.

 

Only Revolutions is very similar to Puzzle, only a little more polished, and that album is fantastic too.

After that, the albums are quite different. Songs like 57 or Jaggy Snake from their early material are great and may be more challenging and interesting to fans of a band like Brand New, but Different People/Black Chandelier/Biblical are absolute brilliant examples of latter day Biffy making perfect radio rock anthems.

 

It didn't sell out but I would say they sold at least 10k of the 12k capacity. Was an incredible night.

 

Brand New were immense at the O2 last Thursday - there was a group of hardcore BN fans right at the front of the gig who made it feel like any other time I've seen them, despite the short set and only just getting there in time for it because of shocking O2 queueing systems I probably enjoyed myself more than I did at Alexandra Palace.

Biffy were really boring in my opinion. Impressive lights or whatever but otherwise insipid and inoffensive alt rock. That Bubbles song was atrocious. That's just my opinion, though.

 

There's been so much Biffy talk in this thread that I was compelled to search them on YouTube and I pulled up maybe 5-7 videos to see what they were all about and the above describes my experience well. They sounded extremely generic. Nothing grabbed me whatsoever.

 

I did exactly the same. I thought they were mad corny

 

Nobody Moves is everything I love about this band.

 

I love the rhythm in Nobody Moves. It's very Glassjaw 3/4 and probably the most experimental song they had up to that point (when the demos leaked).

 

Not knowing Biffy seems alien here. I think everyone at least knows "Mountains" and "Many of Horror". I definitely think outside of their big singles they're not necessarily a "generic" sounding band though. Some of their songs, especially on early albums, range from weird to downright bizzare.

 

I thought Biffy Clyro was the name of a person until this thread. I've heard one song by them and don't feel inclined to seek out another.