Futique puts Biffy Clyro on the SAY Award longlist

Biffy Clyro’s ninth studio album, Futique, was named on the 20-album longlist for the Scottish Album of the Year Award 2026. The announcement was made on 24 and 25 September. The £20,000 prize will be presented at Dundee’s Caird Hall on 5 November.

The longlist was compiled by 100 nominators drawn from journalism, music retail and venues across Scotland. They worked from 303 albums submitted for the award, all released between 1 June 2025 and 31 May 2026. Robert Kilpatrick, CEO of the Scottish Music Industry Association, described the finished list as showcasing “a bold, intimate, powerful and ever-evolving recorded output”.

From Kilmarnock to nine albums

Biffy Clyro formed in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, around Simon Neil and twin brothers James and Ben Johnston. The trio are signed to 14th Floor Records. Across their career, they have released nine studio albums, six of which reached the top five of the UK Albums Chart, with three consecutive studio albums peaking at number one.

After the first three records, the band widened their following significantly in 2007 with Puzzle, which peaked at number two in the UK and later went platinum in 2012. The Myth of The Happily Ever After arrived in 2021. Futique followed in 2025, extending a run that has taken the group from early independent EPs and Blackened Sky through major-label chart success and a catalogue still in active release.

That trajectory matters for how the longlist reads. The SAY Award is framed around Scottish recorded output rather than commercial scale alone, yet Biffy Clyro’s place on it keeps a band with national chart weight in the same frame as smaller and more specialist releases. Futique is not a debut statement or a late-career footnote; it is the latest full-length in a discography that has already delivered multiple number-one albums and a platinum-certified breakthrough.

Twenty albums still in contention

Alongside Futique, the longlist includes Admiral Fallow, Andrew Wasylyk, Barry Can’t Swim, Boards of Canada, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Emma Pollock, Fergus McCreadie, Heir of the Cursed, Pippa Blundell, Sian, Sonedo, Swim School, The Twilight Sad, Valtos and VLURE.

The spread runs from established rock and electronic names to newer acts and instrumental and traditional work. For listeners who follow Scottish releases year-round, the list functions as a snapshot of what nominators across press, shops and venues judged strongest in the eligibility window. For Biffy Clyro, it places Futique among the records still competing for the prize when the ceremony arrives in Dundee.

What remains is the shortlist and the final decision. Neither has been announced with the longlist. Until 5 November, Futique sits with the other nineteen albums in the running for the £20,000 award, a concrete next date on a calendar that otherwise leaves the outcome open.