Image copyright Warner Records

"Life has a weird habit of giving you stuff to sing about," says Biffy Clyro's frontman, Simon Neil. "There's always something to set the cat amongst the pigeons."

The band's last album, 2016's Ellipsis, was written after Neil suffered a number of bereavements and went through a period of crippling writer's block. Before that, the recording sessions for 2013's Opposites were overshadowed by drummer Ben Johnston's alcoholism, which nearly drove the Ayrshire band apart (he's since recovered), and by Neil's wife suffering a series of miscarriages.

Things weren't quite as bleak as they wrote and recorded their ninth album, A Celebration Of Endings - but there was a seismic disruption within the band's inner circle that "really shook our bones to the core".

'Money train'

"Loyalty is really important for us," says Neil, "and there were two long-term working relationships we had, that deteriorated in ways that we couldn't have envisaged.

"One guy was in the very, very inner circle. He'd worked for us from the very start and I thought the relationship would last 'til the day I died," he says. "But we had the worst fall-out ever and the relationship just ended dead in its tracks.

"It's a really sensitive thing to discuss and I don't want to disrespect him by naming him, because I do appreciate there's two sides to every story.

"The other person had been a part of our crew for years - and they basically [chose] money over working with us, which I understand at a certain point, but that was really an eye-opener for me. I felt like we'd just been a money train or whatever for 12 years."

The group were forced to "re-evaluate everything," he says, but the process ended up being liberating.

"We said, 'Actually, all we need is the three of us'.

"And, looking back now, I'm glad, because every album needs a spark. When you don't have something to get off your chest, it can be hard.

"But after we parted ways with those people, I felt so focussed. It really cleared my mind. And that has really been a wonderful realignment in the last year."

The trio, completed by Johnston's twin brother James, met as teenagers in Kilmarnock, playing first as Screwfish before morphing into Biffy Clyro by the time they attended college in Glasgow.

The origins of the name remain shrouded in mystery (although the best explanation is that it derives from Sir Cliff Richard's favourite pen, aka Cliffy's Biro) but their musical rise needs no explanation.

Mixing stadium-ready choruses with bone-crunching riffs, they've established themselves as must-see festival headliners; while quieter songs like Many Of Horror and Rearrange brought them new, mainstream audiences at the turn of the decade.

Their commercial breakthrough was completed when Matt Cardle covered Many Of Horror as his X Factor winner's single in 2010; although the band only truly believed they'd made it when Courtney Love grabbed them at the NME Awards to say they were her daughter's favourite band.

"Her dad was one of the reasons we started making music," Ben Johnston recalled later, "so that was mind-blowing."

All this success was achieved hand-in-hand with their Scottish road crew - which is why last year's personnel changes hit them so hard.

The fall-out is all over the new record. The Napoleonic charge of End Of pummels home the scathing goodbye: "You wouldn't know how to be a friend / You're ill-prepared."

Neil is more reflective on Opaque, however, suggesting the door is open for reconciliation. "You took the money and run," he sings, "But you could have made it right / There's still time."

Leap of faith

More generally, the album bristles with the confidence of a band who've survived a crushing blow.

The first single, Instant History, doubles as their new mission statement. "This is the sound that we make," bellows Neil, resolute, even as the song ditches the band's signature guitar riffs for a pounding electronic beat.

"The irony wasn't lost on me," laughs the singer, "but that's exactly the sentiment: We're always going to be a three-piece, kick-ass rock band, but we're always going to have different flavours to what we do."