at a glance...

Hometown: Cardiff, Wales
Formed: 1993

Members:
Gruff Rhys -guitar, vocals
Cian Ciaran -keyboards, vocals, gum-chewing difficulties
Huw "Bunf" Bunford -guitar, vocals
Guto Pryce -bass, vocals
Dafydd Iewan -drums, percussion, vocals

Bands in the family :
The High Llamas

Notes:
These nutters started out as a techno and noise band in Cardiff, but their hungry musical ears, huge ambition, and hook sense soon turned them into something else entirely: a trippy omni-pop band with elan, chops, and a sincere love of the power of music. Their two initial EPs were sung in Welsh and caused a huge buzz all over the U.K. In 1996 their debut album, Fuzzy Logic, blew everyone away, and they played a number of furious live shows, arriving for many of them in a huge florescent-pink tank. The Super Furries manage to make their mix of '60s bubblegum-pop, '70s boogie-punk, '80s indie-garage, and '90s electro-dance sound original and brilliant, while sporting deeply left-wing politics and some serious Welsh accents. 1997's Radiator added complexity and depth to their sound and firmly established them as critics' darlings, popular heroes, and the only band in the U.K. that other bands don't dare talk shit about. They released Guerrilla in 1999 and followed up with a long-promised Welsh album, Mwng in 2000.

Links:
Super Furry Photo Gallery
Interview with SFA

This is the catchiest and most enjoyable album of the year, and probably the best, but I wouldn't burden it with useless titles, because SFA just don't care about shit like that. They're too busy making albums like this. Listen to it once and you'll really like it a lot; listen to it again and suddenly you'll have the whole flippin' thing memorized and you'll NEVER EVER GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD EVER. Eventually, you'll quit your job and move to Wales and follow them around, or start yet another Web site for them, or get "SFA" tattooed all over your arse, or all of the above. It's that kind of album.

There are blippy-bleepy techno dirges like "Some Things Come From Nothing," garage workouts like "Do or Die" and "Night Vision," touching synthetic doo-wop like "Fire in My Heart" and clunky infectious dance stupidity like "Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home)." Who cares if none of them make any real sense at all? They all make emotional sense, and by the time they end with the inscrutable bubble-gum bounce of "Keep the Cosmic Trigger Happy" and its admonition to "keep it real," you'll be sitting there going: "Yeah! Keep it real!" with tears in your eyes. Don't be afraid. Submit. It's okay.

One of the problems with such a diversity of styles and innovation is that the album seems to lack a center. But once you find the cleverly hidden bonus track, "Citizen's Band," you'll understand everything. (No, I'm not going to tell you; go to www.superfurry.com and find out for yourself like I had to.) I have a whole theory about how "Citizen's Band" is really a metaphor for what they're trying to do on this album and how it's a mission statement for everything the Super Furries are all about, but that's all just bullshit critic talk. The song is really good. The album is really really good. You will like it a lot.

If you like Super Furry Animals, check out:
Super Furry Animals Fuzzy Logic
Super Furry Animals Mwng
Super Furry Animals Radiator
Mogwai Come On Die Young
The Beta Band The Three EPs
Beck Odelay
Os Mutantes Everything Is Possible
Parliament Mothership Connection

-- Matt Cibula