Blackened Sky

Scotland's Biffy Clyro had been linked to the sportswear punk of blink-182, Green Day, and Sum 41 and were championed for sounding more raw and less obvious than any of their contemporaries. But while their debut, 2002's Blackened Sky, hunched over with a gray, very American anger, it also lacked the ideas or abnormal structures of favorites Fugazi and Mudhoney. "Hero Management" was probably the most successful mixture of spangly basslines and damp indie rock, but, unlike Seafood, an outfit they're more accurately compared to, the band came across as all of the least interesting aspects of American grunge released a decade too late.