Album review: Super Furry Animals
Super Furry Animals
Hey Venus!
Label: Rough Trade
Release date: 27 August 2007
Website: http://www.superfurry.com/
Rating: 4 out of 5
Super Furry animals are no slouches. Hey Venus! is their eighth studio album and, in the intervening two years since their last release, there have been various solo records and other creative projects.
But cast aside any fears that they’re spreading themselves thin – they’ve got ideas left to spare. Hey Venus! is a concept album, following the adventures of a girl (Venus, natch) who leaves her hometown, travels to the city and tries to make a life there.
Run-Away is a typically idiosyncratic take on 60s teen songs like Leader of The Pack and, most obviously, Del Shannon’s Runaway. Despite the tragedy of its subject matter, this song is strangely redemptive: “Those who cry and runaway / Live to cry another day”. Gruff Rhys’ crooning is almost heart-throbingly bobby-soxer in the way it curls and pirouettes around the lyrics.
The blissful summer daydream that is lead single Show Your Hand is just about one of the most perfect summer songs ever, redolent of lovers holding hands in sunshine and skipping through dandelion fields.
And, of course, SFA are nothing if not insanely eclectic. The Gift That Keeps Giving is shimmering Philly Soul, with buttery multilayered harmonies. drenched in warm waves of melody.
Neo Consumer is a frenetic, mind-buzzing whirlwind, pounding drums and spinning whirligigs of sounds. Lyrics about insecurity and tension and underlying emptiness play against the pure rump-shaking dance-ability of it/ It has a real tinge of glam rock, of Roxy Music, about it - as does Battersea Odyssey.
Carbon Dating shifts seamlessly from its bouzouki carousel opening to pulsating cosmic music box whilst Into The Night is a psychedelic space age funk odyssey that wouldn’t be out of place in something like Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar. Just the right side of Santana, it’s infectious bongo rhythms and delicate tabla are played against a backdrop of throbbing guitar, shot through with uplifting stellar imagery.
Frenetic and terrifying, Baby Ate My Eightball is a whacked-out chemical nightmare warning of the danger of leaving the pharmaceuticals where Junior can reach them. It’s bloody brilliant.
The record closes on a thoughtful, mournful note. Let The Wolves Howl At The Moon is a whiskey-soaked country song, a lament to lost innocence; “ Bring down the chandeliers/bring down these darkest years… / Let the wolves howl at the moon / For the end, it comes so soon”.
Proof enough then, that Super Furry Animals have more than enough substance with which to enrich their unbridled inventiveness
Hey Venus!
Label: Rough Trade
Release date: 27 August 2007
Website: http://www.superfurry.com/
Rating: 4 out of 5
Super Furry animals are no slouches. Hey Venus! is their eighth studio album and, in the intervening two years since their last release, there have been various solo records and other creative projects.
But cast aside any fears that they’re spreading themselves thin – they’ve got ideas left to spare. Hey Venus! is a concept album, following the adventures of a girl (Venus, natch) who leaves her hometown, travels to the city and tries to make a life there.
Run-Away is a typically idiosyncratic take on 60s teen songs like Leader of The Pack and, most obviously, Del Shannon’s Runaway. Despite the tragedy of its subject matter, this song is strangely redemptive: “Those who cry and runaway / Live to cry another day”. Gruff Rhys’ crooning is almost heart-throbingly bobby-soxer in the way it curls and pirouettes around the lyrics.
The blissful summer daydream that is lead single Show Your Hand is just about one of the most perfect summer songs ever, redolent of lovers holding hands in sunshine and skipping through dandelion fields.
And, of course, SFA are nothing if not insanely eclectic. The Gift That Keeps Giving is shimmering Philly Soul, with buttery multilayered harmonies. drenched in warm waves of melody.
Neo Consumer is a frenetic, mind-buzzing whirlwind, pounding drums and spinning whirligigs of sounds. Lyrics about insecurity and tension and underlying emptiness play against the pure rump-shaking dance-ability of it/ It has a real tinge of glam rock, of Roxy Music, about it - as does Battersea Odyssey.
Carbon Dating shifts seamlessly from its bouzouki carousel opening to pulsating cosmic music box whilst Into The Night is a psychedelic space age funk odyssey that wouldn’t be out of place in something like Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar. Just the right side of Santana, it’s infectious bongo rhythms and delicate tabla are played against a backdrop of throbbing guitar, shot through with uplifting stellar imagery.
Frenetic and terrifying, Baby Ate My Eightball is a whacked-out chemical nightmare warning of the danger of leaving the pharmaceuticals where Junior can reach them. It’s bloody brilliant.
The record closes on a thoughtful, mournful note. Let The Wolves Howl At The Moon is a whiskey-soaked country song, a lament to lost innocence; “ Bring down the chandeliers/bring down these darkest years… / Let the wolves howl at the moon / For the end, it comes so soon”.
Proof enough then, that Super Furry Animals have more than enough substance with which to enrich their unbridled inventiveness
posted by YG&B at 1:29 PM
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