super furry animals:what do you all think

The last decent band on Creation, for what it's worth.

If I can namedrop for a second, a friend and I were talking to Martin Carr before a Brave Captain gig a couple of months ago and according to him(Martin Carr, not my friend)the next Furries album is what Radiohead were trying to do with Kid A except its actually good. Sounds as if it could be interesting anyway.

I am still amazed how these guys seem unable to release bad or even mediocre albums. My least favourite album by them so far is "Guerilla", but even that one is a great pop album.

Still waiting for them to get their deserved mainstream breakthrough. A lot of considerably more weird and unsellable music than SFA has managed to crossover to the Mainstream after all.

I must admit I haven't heard "Mwng", but the others I would rank like this:

1. Radiator
2. Rings Around The World
3. Phantom Power
4. Love Kraft
5. Fuzzy Logic
6. Guerilla

1. Guerilla
2. Rings
3. Radiator
4. Fuzzy
5. Phant
6. Lovekraft

I have persevered with 6, but it's a hard life when you play the game, its so easy all you got to do is fall in love, flay the furries...

Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, the singles comp would be at position 0, but that's unfair as their singles are all ruddy fantastic.

My list then:

1. Fuzzy Logic
2. Guerilla
3. Radiator
4. Rings
5. Mwng
6. Love Kraft
7. Phantom

1. Radiator
2. Guerilla
3. Mwng
4. Rings Around The World
5. Fuzzy Logic
6. Phantom Power
7. Love Kraft

I had been saying that they were the best band of the last 10 years thru 2004, Phantom Power was a grower and now really enjoy it. I'm pretty disappointed with Love Kraft, so they have been knocked from that position this last year. Still a great, great band and don't think they are finished by any means. [Crossing fingers]

...and as I write, Receptacle For The Respectable turns into a bubblegum death-metal track. Hell yeah.

rollocks

i know you're dying to tell us what your best album of 97 is.

Yes, I agree. The B-sides of that era (Spaced Out) is also a really strong bunch of non-album songs (with 'Ice Hockey Hair' also).

Run Xtian Run is fantastic though, best track on that album by some way (although I like Presidential Suite as well).

see, i do like stuff!

just, well, predominantly from the late '90s...

mountain people >>>>> the private psychedelic reel

I have too much foolish teen nostalgia for the latter to ever be able to agree with this. Download is my favourite track on the album, it deserves more love

Depends how you listen to music, really. I like to take the rough with the smooth.

I find their last two albums a bit boring.

for mine, they've consistently put out good records

'rings around the world' is getting better with age, 'love kraft' not so much. at the moment, without having heard phantom power or mwng, i'd say RATW strongly challenges 'radiator' as their finest album.

in fact, if you did the following:

-RATW's first 3 tracks
-Guerrilla's middle 3 tracks (from 'Wherever...' to 'Some Things...')
-Radiator's last 7 tracks

...you'd have an absolutely monumental, blinding, incredible, decade-defining album.

nah, screw that, here's an EVEN BETTER album, an album which I'd happily give 10/10 to:

0) (i.e. you have to wind back a la 'citizen's band') Blerwytirhwng?
1) Zoom!
2) Sidewalk Serfer Girl
3) (Drawing) Rings Around The World
4) The International Language Of Screaming
5) Demons
6) Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home)
7) Hermann Loves Pauline
8) No Sympathy
9) Chupacabras
10) Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir
11) Bass Tuned To DEAD
12) Down A Different River
13) Run! Christian, Run!
14) Cabin Fever
15) Mountain People

Please point me in the direction of these Radiohead songs that are attempting to be HARDCORE TECHNO.

Yours,

Perplexed of Tunbridge Wells.

I've never heard any of SFA's 'techno' tracks... something tells me I really don't want to.

I would point you towards the last two minutes of 'Sit Down. Stand Up' (one of their very best songs, to be fair), with an option on 'Idioteque' if your definitions of 'hardcore' are a little stretchy. A number of the b-sides, such as 'Where Bluebirds Fly', share certain characteristics with 'hardcore techno' as well.

My 'very often' comment was directed mostly at the 'songs over six minutes' claim, of which Radiohead have two or three, which is quite obviously not nearly enough.

Yours,

L0u15 J4gg3r.

(also, my reading comprehension is way off tonight, I though MattDC was talking about them too for a second)

Interesting that Rings Around the World gets so much love here. There are about forty-two SFA threads on ILM -- this one is the only one w/ no hate for RATW.

Personally, I think it's their best -- songwriting-wise, texturally, etc. In light of Phantom Power and Love Kraft--fine records both--part of me thinks RATW holds up largely b/c it's their last "electic" record (a la Guerilla).

haha, i still think RATW is mindblowing, all these 3 months later

shagging a pizza >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Paul Young

-- Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 2 February 2007 16:44 (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

the fact that an SFA thread can come to this is why I love ILX so much

they have some kind of reggae selection compilation chosen by the SFA. bit weird though - only 16 tracks and they're fairly well known. don't know why the SFA have done this?

Just listened to Fuzzy Logic and Radiator for the first time in ages today.

Fuzzy Logic is actually, really quite good -- much better than I remember and very underrated. The middle stretch in particular is very strong -- "Gathering Moss," "If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You." It's before they became the "Eclectic SFA" and were really much more Britpop...but in a good way.

Radiator maybe takes it to the next level -- maybe. Less strings, but continued rocking out, a bit more weirdness. In retrospect, RATW is really the apotheosis of where they were headed until that point, very crisp, clear melodies and all over the map stylistically; Phantom Power maybe a bit of a comedown -- that is, if you like your SFA zany, unpredictable and agitated. If not, you probably like the last two records quite a bit. Myself, I prefer Love Kraft to Phantom, if only b/c it's a bit spacier and more epic...

Ultimately, what I find particularly interesting is the utter lack of consensus w/ these guys as to which is their best. None, zero, nada. It's almost as if people see what they want in SFA.

the new album (hopefully) will throw some of the recent sfa apathy out the window.

each track sounds like an echo of a previous sfa track you knew and loved but different and/or better.

i get the feeling they've tightened focus on what they do really well, and it shows. 'hey venus' is full of major hooks, as well as the single quality that sets them apart from 95% of bands: imagination.

hey venus is fantastic stuff. the world of pop by sfa. essential buy of 2007.

hey venus! is fantastic stuff. the world of pop by sfa. essential buy of 2007.

i quite like "baby ate my eightball", the backing vocals are great. sounds like they have been listening to animal collective.

part of me thinks RATW holds up largely b/c it's their last "electic" record (a la Guerilla).

Surely "Phantom Power" was eclectic enough. I mean, like that instrumental towards the end which starts like a nice electronic synth tune and ends up in white noise more or less.

neo consumer, baby ate my eightball and into the night are fun.

there is no song like that on 'phantom power', geir. if you're talking about 'slow life', then a) it has vocals and b) it never even gets close to being 'white noise'.

slow life has an instrumental spaced part that builds up nicely into white noise. it's my ringotne.

dude if you think that's white noise then i'd like to see how you'd react to wilco's "poor places"

or merzbow

I can't possibly imagine how Geir might react to Merzbow. Not at all.

he would check to see if his fridge was ok

ppl need to keep thread sfa

geir's fridge hums in arpeggios and his toaster was hand-crafted by steve hackett

SHOW YOUR HAND can now be downloaded on itunes.

I think they look like this and Gruff is far too laid back not to be on _something_.

http://www.missionphotographic.com/images/music/Super%20Furry%20Animals.jpg

falling in love with every track of this album. falling them with sfa again.

One of the great bands of the last two decades. Underrated, sort of ignored, but still in everyone's periphery. It's doubtful they'll ever be a huge band, but they've recorded a ton of great songs and stayed consistently good, if not great (in most people's opinions).

Think they focused to do a great pop record. reckon it's their most accessible stuff.

i believe gruff is pretty straight these days, quit the weed a long while ago. an early history (with all of them i guess) of pharmaceutical recreation can leave a mark, but the major caning days are behind them.

and the new album still sounds fckg brilliant. pft gets it right i think in the pop angle. they'll still not get a top ten single though, or a no.1 album.

just listening now to 'show your hand'. easy to forget how the general loveliness of the sound will stop you from hearing nuggets like:

turn your face to the sunshine
and all the shadows will fall behind

that photo's good too. but some swords would come in handy (scott)

They wanted to make a pop record after parted company with sony and after lukewarm reaction to love kraft. the latter - a fantastic solid album - needed 42 listens to be loved; this one immediately suck you in. simple, straightforward, not a step forward but maybe one beyond, only 31 mins (?), a gem of melodies and good songwriting.

SFA have done it again- what we didn't expect; better than what everyone else can manage.

It's an incredible record - and brilliantly sequenced: the songs get progressively longer as it progresses, making its 36 minutes seem considerably longer.

"Carbon Dating" and "Battersea Odyssey" even improve on the Love Kraft sound.

saw them at glasto: people loved them and the set was fun. are sfa now willing to conquer the world?

simon h- completely agree about "carbon dating" and "battersea odyssey". Seems like the record is split in three different acts, still it remains cohesive and solid.

They're probably never going to conquer the world, but they'll continue to have respectable sales and exist just under the radar. They're better off than many British musicians of the '90s. They're consistently critically lauded (for the most part), their singles always chart, and they're extremely prolific.

I really don't think they have the sort of appeal that would capture many people's attention. Gruff has an undeniably weird voice and a thick accent that is hard for many to figure out. Plus, they've got to deal with their name, which makes it harder to take them seriously. They'll always have a sense of humor and be eclectic, though, and that's all I expect and want out of them. I wish their days of creating a huge, expansive record like Rings weren't behind them, but I think that's the case. However, if they continue releasing LPs as good as Hey Venus! they're going to stick around a while yet. I don't think it's going to be a huge critical or commercial success, but consensus so far is that it's at least better than Love Kraft (which wasn't really met with more than a handful of mediocre reviews [I thought it was relatively mediocre, for what it's worth]).

Word's out that they're releasing three LPs in three years for Rough Trade, so the next one, which is from the 'Hey Venus' sessions, will be out in 2008. I think I heard it was going to be more of an experimental album than Hey Venus! but we'll see.

at least they took thei guitar back. The slowing down, lush arrangements and ambition really reached the top with 'Love Kraft'. They made an excellent straightforward still eclectic pop album. Hey Venus is the sound of a band who set the standard too high and don't want to end up like Pulp.

Did anybody hear the acoustic version of "the gift that keeps giving again" last night on radio 2? Blimey! Stunning and hilarious.

Hey Venus is the sound of a band who set the standard too high and don't want to end up like Pulp.

What does this mean exactly?

They're grown up now. With "This is Hardcore" and "We love life" Pulp made an excellent album and were critically louded, but they sounded a bit tired- they didn't write catchy and straightforward tunes. After Love Kraft and if they want to stick around for a while this is the album SFA had to do: short, varied, with tunes that got stuck in your head, immediatey. And only after a few times you listen to it you appreciate the deeper level and gets better. But this is how pop rock should sound: sharp, immediate, smart and at leat enjoyable.

as good as the music probably is (2 listens - needs more), i cant get over the dreadful cover art.

yes, artwork is awful...why did they change? i liked p. fowler.

think i smoked some crap stuff last night when i wrote that post...

ARE SFA STILL RELEVANT?

Who gives a shit?

I saw Gruff Rhys play the Troca Brahma show last night, and he was brilliant. The show he puts on with his 'other' band blows live SFA performances away. The drummer and the bassist in particular are awesome. 'Skylon!' live is one of the single greatest music performances I've seen. It keeps getting better and better until the bass and the drum overpower the song and everyone on stage looks like they're having a great time. Last night, Peter Fowler joined them on stage and messed around with an oscillator. And Gruff's roadie, Les, was playing banjo.

Oh man, it was incredible. It makes me wonder if I can ever fully appreciate SFA again, when Gruff's own solo show is so much better than an SFA show.

nah Teflon monkey...i loved Candylion and saw Gruff live- blowing! But SFA are the best thing since sliced bread; i do appreciate them more now that I love Gruff's solo stuff

Well, I'm sorry you saw him 'blowing.' He was definitely on point last night.

"the gift that keeps giving again" and "The court of king Arthur" are amazing tunes.

Teflon, yeah you're right he was; but that leaves me wanting more SFA and makes them sound like they were the biggest band on earth.

...and the fact is releasing some great music tends to make Gruff and consequently the sound of SFA more focused on Hey Venus! than it was in the last five years.

I don't really get what you're trying to say.

I agree that they're great, though. I mean, I assume that's what you're saying.

sorry for my english everyone...anyway yes, teflon: they're great. Eight albums in, excellent solo and side projects, no Peter Fowler, but SFA are still the most amazing band on earth. Hey Venus! is one of the best collection of songs of 2007.

How will Hey Venus! chart in the UK?

Not well.

The single is great, by the way. 'Show Your Hand's' production is a bit different--fuller.

Why do you think not well? I think between 10th and 20th; but it won't be the debacle of Ash's TOTI.
Will Show Your Hands be in the top 40th?

I love the production of the whole album, I think is straightforward and lush at the same time.

No--the production on the single version of 'Show Your Hand' is superior to the album version. I'm not sure if the final album release is going to sound different or if it's just for the single. If it's the latter, the decision makes little sense.

And I don't think it'll sell well because SFA don't really have mainstream appeal anymore. Love Kraft hit what, #24, and then faded from the charts. Rough Trade may try to push this one more, but I don't even think 'Show Your Hand' is getting a music video.

I don't mind. Check out this awesome, masturbatory ode to SFA: http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/2307150

That about sums up my thoughts.

Commercially it's too late for SFA now. Had they gotten even more of the press hype they deserved for "Radiator" or "Rings Around The World", they might have been huge by now. But now they have been cult acts for 11 years, and will never be anything more than that. Even though they would have deserved it.

Yes- cult acts for 11 years but they always managed to get their singles into the top 40. Today Show Your Hands entered the charts at #46!

I really hope that everybody now will buy Hey Venus! in order to save the finest band of the last decade. Go and tell people the album is amazing.

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS RESCUE

I don't think it matters and frankly I don't think they care. They're doing what they want and are more prolific than ever. It's not my concern whether or not their albums sell thousands or millions. So long as they keep touring and making music, I'm happy.

I saw Gruff Rhys at the Koko in London a few weeks ago, and he played to a packed venue. They may not be internationally renowned musicians, but they've maintained a sizable following through the years.

Mine is like a social concern: I guess more people should enjoy their music; it's a pity they cannot reach millions. It's a shame when a fine crafted song like Show Your Hands just reaches #46 in the chart, it still makes me sad.

Furthermore, I think you need a big audience to be relevant.

Really enjoyed the drowned in sound article. Really enjoying the single version of Show Your Hand and The Gift... those days...

Hey Venus! is an accomplished work and gets better every day, it emphasizes the uniqueness of SFA.

i didn't realise the single version was different to the album.
the single has been sat in the pile for ages, and i just assumed it would be same as the album. off to check it now.

What Geir said is spot on. (frame that)

By actually being "big", they get more budget etc to play with. How it is now, it's the downward slope. Maybe they'll go on forever, maybe they'll pack in the same point as if they'd become U2 style famous, who knows. But it matters, a bit.

I think they're better off without the big budget to play with, to be honest; I think they've been glossily dull and unexciting since Creation folded into Sony.

Furthermore, I think you need a big audience to be relevant.

Would you care to explain this please?

I've been liking the album in a quiet way and will probably see them at a horrible festival this weekend

Sorry for my English, sometimes I really cannot explain what I mean...

Anyway I meant that it's a shame that an album as good as Hey Venus!will be heard just a few hundreds people; you can be the greatest band on earth but if nobody listen to your music what's the point in that?

I've been liking the album in a quiet way, what do you mean?

I think they've been glossily dull and unexciting since Creation folded into Sony

RATW is now in my top 5 favourite albums of all-time, so I cannot fathom why you think this. I'll agree the two afterwards demonstrated a drop-off in quality, but RATW represents for me the apotheosis of what SFA should have been aiming to achieve.

I'll obtain the new album, but I don't have high hopes for it.

1) RATW
2) RADIATOR
3) HEY VENUS!
4) MWNG
5) FUZZY LOGIC
6) LOVE KRAFT
7) GUERRILLA
8) PHANTOM POWER

but they're all very solid efforts- hard to choose, also depends on the mood.

The entire album is streaming on their MySpace: www.myspace.com/superfurry

Cheers!
Your favourite? Would like to know your opinion.

Run-Away

Yes it has a nice wall of sound meet glam rock vibe. Witty lyrics as well, love the banking details bit!

That was absolutely wretched, bar 'Suckers' and to a lesser extent 'Nu-Consumer'. You heard me, WRETCHED. Awful. Like some bog-standard SFA covers band doing 'Back On A Roll' 11 times. No imagination, no depth, no wonder. It makes the last two look like masterpieces. God, I hope this isn't permanent.

Phantom Power was pretty great, Love Kraft not so much. I don't think this is their best, but I like it quite a bit and would rank it among my favorites of the year. I think Candylion is a better album, but it's nice to have a band I've always liked release something I like after their last huge disappointment.

I don't know. I know it's not their most imaginative release yet and they even admitted as much, which is kind of odd...

Actually, this lip-synced performance of 'Show Your Hand' kind of says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB_xSQI-gTI&mode=related&search=

Or does it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFIbwQViLOQ&mode=related&search=

That one is pretty hilarious, too.

I don't know what's going on.

what's going on?

wretched?

It's the straightforward, consistant and short album they needed to do after the overindulgence of Love Kraft. A handful of catchy and well cfafted pop songs; I agree it's not the Furries' at their most imaginative or ambitious but still one of the best album (the best?) of the year so far.

www.myspace.com/superfurry

I think this review is pretty much spot on:

Super Furry Animals, Hey Venus!

*** After eight albums have the indie underdogs lost their bite?

Sam Wolfson
Sunday August 12, 2007
The Observer

Still a much-loved indie underdog after six top 20 records, how can SFA go wrong? They just whip out their squelchy brass and jangly guitars and stumble upon a sonic experience that took Brian Wilson four decades to perfect. The gospel harmonies of 'Let the Wolves' attest to a band brimming with experience. But their usual humour and warmth is replaced by a smug complacency. They fail to develop their retro psychedelia influences, and use fairground organs and cutesy strings as lazy shorthand for dreamy nostalgia. The result is a pleasant record that's lacking in personality.

there were literally hundreds of copies the picture disc in my local megabore, someone has high hopes don't they !

I don't think the Observer review is particularly spot on.

MUSIC OHM

Love Kraft was excellent. Climactic. It was the sound of an accomplished and imaginative band reaching the gates of prog pop heaven and crashing through. How, then, do you follow the fulfilment of years of steadily-more-exciting promise?
Short of packing your bags and fading into the never, the answer is, of course, to change direction like a backstage yeti: for all of Love Kraft’s expansive forays into changing scenery, Hey Venus! is happy to be a half-hour saunter along the beach. A beach with purple sand. And a caramel sea.

And so the Super Furries have assembled an 11-track effort and managed to refrain from techno freak-outs for (almost) the entire duration. Run Away, for instance, evokes the type of chord-strong, viral-chorus ballad Roy Orbison made his own.

Lead single, Show Your Hand, dwells in the same era, setting out sugar-sweet harmonies from the Brian Wilson School of Spine-Tingling Pop, while The Gift That Keeps Giving is splendidly self-referential, its layered falsetto remaining utterly alluring into its umpteenth spin.

Affairs then delve into Fuzzy Logic-esque foot stomping and guitar wrangling: Neo Consumer scats above Pulp-inspired derision before Into The Night wrestles funk from an axe, again consolidated with a refrain the coldest soul would struggle find hard to resist.

Despite the fact that 30-odd minute efforts are hard-pressed to lose the thread, SFA keep things strictly on track with the slightly psychedelic Baby Ate My Eightball, leaving it to the classical instrumentation of Carbon Dating to signal a beginning of the end, and its key-caressing, '50s-style melancholy is nothing short of beautiful (Suckers comes close to doing the same).

The saunter draws to a close with the strikingly odd, Bunf-led Battersey Odyssey and sad, ponderous Let The Wolves Howl At The Moon, and all post-Love Kraft reservations are buried in front of the advancing tide (that being the irresistible urge to play it all over again).

Hey Venus!, then, is not the type of progressing heavyweight that has marked the output of later day Super Furries. As a shorter, lighter effort, though, it is every bit as tantalising, thickly coated in SFA-brand special sauce and still worth its weight in goal.

- David Welsh

CONTACT MUSIC (Richard Edge)

Super Furry Animals

Hey Venus!
Album Review
The fact that the UK summer of 2007 has been dreadful in terms of sunshine is an obvious downer, sadly made worse by the fact that this, the album of the summer has not actually had a proper season for its birth. A travesty indeed.

Hey Venus! is a lush, spacey selection of beautiful tunes from the Welsh maestros. By god, the harmonies on The Gift that Keeps Giving make the Beach Boys sound like a boy band before their vocals are processed through the auto tuner. Single cut Show Your Hand has you by the throat about 30 seconds into the second listen, and by the time the key change kicks in you're dancing like a loon.

This is music for sunshine, friends and maybe a VW camper van road trip. Even without any of them, this is still utterly fantastic stuff. Pray for sunshine.

Album: Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus!
Monday, August 20, 2007
Hugh Platt

Super Furry Animals and his mob have one of the most enviable track records for a British band – insofar that they’ve never released anything that could be described as a duff release. Okay, so ‘Love Kraft’ wasn’t to many people’s tastes (including this reviewer) but you’d have to be a harsh bastard to describe it as bad. And okay, so in all probability they will never have a song so gratuitously glorious as ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’. But when the new album, ‘Hey Venus!’ came into the office, there was a bubbling sense of excitement as we slapped it on the stereo.

Don’t be misled by ‘Show Your Hand’, that winsome brick of tweeness that’s been propping up afternoon radio slots for the last few weeks. It’s one of those tracks that’s impossible to hate, but similarly impossible to ever really like. It could quite easily be playing during the end credits of that kind of British RomCom Film That Your Mum Likes, but it isn’t really reflective of the whole album.

By the time this record gets halfway through, you just want to curl up in a foetal huddle and bliss out on the inventiveness on offer. Whether it’s the indie-funk (no, really) of ‘The Gift That Keeps Giving’, the Polyphonic-Spree-doing-glamrock of ‘Neo Consumer’, or the rockabilly ballad pianos married to Japanese sci-fi strings for ‘Carbon Dating’, every track on the record finds a new way to squeeze and stroke your frontal lobes till you feel almost lost amongst the multi-faced musical craftworks.

Gruff Rhys still has that almost powdery laid-back quality in his vocals, and overall this album feels like that thick warm feeling brought on by eating too much pizza and smoking too much weed. It’s not soporific, like the cup-of-cocoa output of Athlete, but sharp crafted. I hate to use a Beach Boys comparison (c/o every other review SFA have ever had ever) but with all the layers the Welshman have crafted onto each and every song on this album, it’s the only real comparison that sticks

It's a three-star review, and I'd call it a three-star album. Enjoyable, some surprising moments, but not really the most important addition to their song library.

It's nowhere near as great as Fuzzy Logic through RAtW. To me, that album run represents some of the greatest music ever recorded so it's not like it's an easy expectation to meet.

Oh. And I'd argue every song they recorded during that period, almost including every b-side, was essential and they pretty much did no wrong.

I agree- OUT SPACED is a very good album indeed. Anyway I still think Hey Venus! is a grower- at first I was not impressed, but then I'm enjoying it every day more. First seven songs are great and although it losts some momentum at the end is a brilliant pop record.

I've had this for literally months, but after an early attempt only managed to get me 90 seconds oin before I went and played Electrelane again, I've not been able to bring myself to listen to it.

But I've got to review it for Stylus, so I made myself listen to it this morning.

And you know what? It's pretty good. Starts weakly, granted, but the middle section was excellent. I enjoyed it a lot more than either of the two, probably three previous. I'll give it a couple more spins and compose some thoughts.

Waiting for your thoughts...

Am listening to "The Gift That Keeps Giving Agian" and I reckon is a superb song: luscious melody, falsetto and soft funky vibe.

Teflon Monkey or Broken Leaf???

I want you to love this record!

Think now they're not Sony anymore, it will be difficult to get the album here in Italy

It's on Rough Trade.

My thoughts are that it's a solid album. Were I reviewing it, I'd give it a score around the 70s. It's not anything that's going to change the face of music or stand out in five or six years, so it's not really worth so much discussion.

I'll see them live when they come around. They'll always be a band I follow.

From The Times August 24, 2007

Super Furry Animals: Hey Venus!Pete Paphides

With the possible exception of Damon Albarn, Gruff Rhys of Super Furrys remains the only musician of his generation for whom the ideas well seems to keep refilling. Hey Venus! is no exception. Though you might struggle to keep tabs on the narrative conceit that apparently spawned the Welsh five-piece’s eighth album – young woman leaves her small-town life behind for adventures in the metropolis – it’s there on the bold fuzzpop of RunAway. “I still recall your banking details," Rhys mourns over a tune that stretches out the grubby bubblegum of old Sweet records to Spectoresque proportions.

It's the same era that new single Show Your Hand inhabits, with a single, emphatic power chord bouncing you from a Kevin Ayers-style psych-pop intro into rarefied soft-rock territory, with more than a soupçon of Bacharach-vintage trumpets to seal the deal. Indeed, a rich vein of classicism – backward-glancing but never soft-headed – extends into every corner of Hey Venus!

Were it not for Rhys’s coarse-cut vocals, Into the Night could pass for some accidentally brilliant Turkish Song For Europe entry circa 1978, or a Boney M b-side with what sounds like distorted electric dulcimer darting around Rhys's adhesively catchy chorus.

You’ll hear the same noise on the more pensive Suckers, one of a minority of tunes on Hey Venus! that might sound out of place on the Terry Wogan show. Of others that fall in the same category, the powerpop of Neo Consumer boasts the best wordless chorus since the Kaiser Chiefs’ Na Na Na Na Na, and reminds you that these pop sophisticates are also one of the world’s best live bands.

You’d think that by now any band that had made eight excellent, innovative albums in their first decade – ten if you include the lysergic campfire pop of Rhys’s solo albums – would be cruising towards a midlife purple patch of South Bank Shows, Radio 4 appraisals and the obligatory box set. Quite why all this has eluded Super Furry Animals is anyone’s guess. Maybe they would have fared better if they had contrived to turn out a couple of duffers – all the better for us to hail their genius when they returned to the schizoid stoner pop of their early years. So far, though, we have no reason to believe that might ever happen. Seasoned Furrywatchers will know this already, but newcomers looking for an entry point could do worse than start here.

Actually the na na na chorus from Kaiser Chiefs pairs up with the one from Charmless Man as the most annoying things I've ever heard.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/super-furry-animals/hey-venus.htm

I think most of the reviewers are a bit wrong-footed because people don't really expect a band on their eighth album to make something that sounds to all intents and purposes like a debut.

Yes but SFA have set the standards very high.

Stylus' review is spot on, probably the best I've red so far.

That is a great review. Nice job.

Super Furry Animals, Hey Venus!

(Rough Trade)

Betty Clarke
Friday August 24, 2007
The Guardian
****

Hey Venus!

They've got a new producer and a new home, but Super Furry Animals' eighth album sees the Welsh wonders reclaiming their bubbly pop past. Here the band play to their strengths with a new, light, touch: Hey Venus! is stuffed full of sublime melodies, catchy choruses and vivid pyschedelia. The songs are linked by the tale of a small-town girl (the Venus of the title) lusting after the bright lights and finding fleeting fame in the big city.

Run Away sounds like Roy Orbison waltzing with the Ronettes, while Into the Night is space-funk at its best, and Neo Consumer recalls the controlled chaos of God! Show Me Magic. Baby Ate My Eight Ball and Battersea Odyssey, however, are darker forays into eccentricity. The subtly scathing ballad Suckers details the disillusion and strength Venus discovers, while Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon sums up her story with maturity and class. The only shortcoming is how quickly it's all over. Roll on number nine.

Is that the press release?

the guardian, someone posted the observer.

I don't want to listen to this again but I may have to. How fucking complacent it sounded, though, how utterly insipid.

you should- it'll lighten up your day and warm your heart up.

My argument for the greatest SFA song ever: http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/2/5/738508/17%20Gwreiddiau%20Dwfn.mp3

The live version is absolutely their single most accomplished moment. I have no idea why they don't close their shows this way anymore.

My god, this is way better than the (already awesome) album version! WOW! The closing freakout, in which I am currently embroiled, is done in a particularly satisfying manner. If I was in SFA I'd try and get Blerwytirhwng? installed as set-closer tho.

This is SFA at their best, rewarding way of starting the day.

UNCUT: You seem to have reigned in the excess on this one.

RHYS: When Rough Trade picked us up, Geoff Travis said, "Can you make us one of those pop records?" So we recorded a load of songs and initially we were going to choose heavier songs but in the end we tried to make our idea of a pop record.

...and they seem to have succeeded since my mum loves it and rate it best of the year alongside Panda Bear.

^ FAKE IRM

Dear Mr Tanaami,

We have been big fans of your work for some time. We have toured many times in Japan and were gradually introduced to your work by friends. It would be an honour to have one of our sleeves designed by you.

The new Super Furry Animals album is a collection of 12 autonomous songs ranging in styles from country and contemporary rock music to orchestral psychedelic pop. However there are common threads that link the songs thematically.

The central character that emerges from these songs is that of an optimistic young woman. Leaving behind a fairly sheltered upbringing in a small distant town and following a break up with her first true love she moves to the city to seek love and glory.

Here as a displaced migrant she encounters many problems, the vast scale of the city metropolis, the insane cacophony of mass consumerism and failed relationships drives her to the edge. She briefly has a break as a TV star having been discovered by a fashion photographer at a gardening tools shop., but as her career dives, is forced to work at 'Crazy Naked Girls' strip club. She assumes a hedonistic existence but this in turn leads to the death of her young child.

She is left a rather bitter disenchanted and corrupted individual but at this point finds true love and salvation from the most unexpected quarter. We leave her as a strong experienced individual prepared for all situations.

We hope you enjoy the music and you are inspired by the themes above.
We can be contacted 24 hours a day should you need further information,

Yours Sincerely,
The Super Furry Animals

album's out. will i buy this or aqualung?

Hey Venus!, Super Furry Animals' latest album, is more than just a welcome diversion, says Jude Rodgers

Friday August 24, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Hey Venus!

1 The Gateway Song
0.43 At last! Nearly five months into my rollercoaster odyssey of track-by-track reviewing, here's my very first concept album - and who more appropriate to make it than the genre-guzzling Super Furry Animals? Hey Venus! is the Furries' eighth studio LP, and according to the press bumph, it follows the narrative of a girl who moves from a small town to a busy metropolis. We kick off in style: a 43-second long introductory "gateway song" comprising a four-to-the-floor drumbeat, some hey-hey-hey-heys, and a rolling pub piano. Imagine how a Jools Holland-style singalong would sound like in heaven rather than sweaty-browed, studio-lit hell. (And yes, without Holland).

2 Runaway
0.06 Here's our narrator, Gruff. "This song is based on a true story, which would be fine if it wasn't autobiographical". The madness has started! 0.55 "Runaway, that's what I did today/Run away/There's nothing that I couldn't say/I cry a little." This is the Furries' She's Leaving Home - a wistful pop stomper, all Beach Boys chord progressions, and a lovely, tender, Gruff vocal. Tailor-made for those festival moments when one cider too many has got you "a bit emotional", swaying your empty pint glass mistily in the band's general direction. 1.26 And even when they're dreamy, they're snappy with a lyric: "We may have fought with teeth and nails/ But I still recall your bank details". Does our girl have the PIN, though? I sense trouble!

3 Show Your Hand

0.14 "I can see flowers wilting in the sun/Delusions of grandeur/Can overcome anyone." What a lovely, subtle opening gambit. Delusions of grandeur never overcome the Furries, to my mind - they can tackle pop, techno, folk, and funk and never sound like they're larking daftly about, or simply showing off. This song is the sort of music they do best - hazy, lazy sunshine pop. 1.43 I'm not entirely sure how this story's progressing, though. There's some metaphors about holding cards to chests and jumping off fences. I don't think the goddess of love ever did that. But our girl's obviously escaping somewhere, to a background of ba-ba-bas, soft violins and strong trombones. 2.22 And to an euphoric key change - just like those Westlife swines do at the ends of their songs, but done wonderfully. But does it mean hope for our girl?

4 The Gift

1.08 Well, she's had a present, and she's unwrapping it. It is "the gift that keeps giving again". I have no idea what this comprises, but it has some bells on it. 1.57 Still no clue. God, I'm a terrible detective - like Poirot on a bender. Not even the late Beatles, Sun King-style wooziness and shades of Fleetwood Mac and ELO that are all over this track - and have been over every track so far - offer any assistance. 2.53 "The receiver keeps receiving" too. Let's hope this is a good thing. Although the press bumph said something about Venus working in a strip club, so I have my reservations.

5 Noo Consumer

0.26 The pace has picked up - can-style blurps and beeps, chop-and-change time signatures, and oh-oh-ohs straight out of a multi-coloured top drawer. Think of the Furries' perky early singles - God! Show Me Magic or Something For The Weekend - reworked and jazzed up, but still feeling as fresh as clean feet in a field of swaying flowers. 2.01 But what's happening with the story, you say? Well, there's some running around, feeling lost when you're found, something about backs to the wall and, er, shopping. Perhaps this song's contribution to the narrative is "charmingly vague". Or else my metaphor-decoding brain has just switched itself to standby.

6 Into The Night

0.28 We've gone funky and rocky. I'm thinking of Black Sabbath and Sly Stone locking horns and trying out some amplified sitars. Yes I am. 2.39 WHAT'S HAPPENING TO VENUS? Oh, please, hold your horses. Gruff is saying something about someone's milky way. And I think he is using the word Jodrell. As in Jodrell Bank. Which is rhyming slang for something, well, a mite onanistic. Oh dear. Unless my mind is playing silly buggers.

7 Baby Ate My Eight Ball

0.20 Surely eating an eight-ball's got to hurt - even when it's set to a glam '70s beat that makes me think of Suzi Quatro in her leather-suited pomp. 1.33 "Frothing at the mouth/Send me to heaven/See you on the other side." Oh dear. Doesn't sound like things are turning out well for our lassie. 2.08 Although the music confuses matters, here sounding ridiculously - and brilliantly - like a cross between Franz Ferdinand and Barry White. If only the pearly gates were that much fun!

8 Carbon Dating

0.07 That forensic title, these forlorn, shimmery strings, a tune that reminds me, imperceptibly, of a sad John Lennon ballad...is our girl a goner? 0.27 You never know with SFA. She could have been horribly murdered to these parpy, pastoral, Peter And The Wolf-style bassoons. 1.58 Someone's eating beer and drinking food, but I'm not convinced that's conventional behaviour at the hospital bed, or beyond the grave. But slowly, I'm realising this doesn't really matter. What matters instead is that lovely, languid high-pitched melody, these one-note '60s girl group electric pianos, those gentle drum fills...it doesn't matter what they're saying. The music is so woozy and gorgeous - the kind of dreamy pop in which you could lose yourself forever - the words are just extra fabulous flourishes.

9 Suckers

3.05 Even when Gruff or Venus is calling everyone suckers, as he is here, to a soft, rolling beat - they're in the city, the country, outer space, tennis clubs and nuclear reactors - you want to kiss them and love them.

10 Battersea Odyssey

1.56 And you love them even more when they go slightly off-piste - with a strange, discordant introduction that sounds like an out-take from David Bowie's Low, morphing into the kind of Kinksy masterpiece that Damon Albarn would have ripped off a Fred Perry-sleeved arm for in 1995.

11 Wolves

0.42 "Back to life in a bag/Sucking deep on a fag/Said goodbye to the mirror/Threw my keys in the river/And ran along." We've reached the last song, and this is Venus's vaguely redemptive moment, set to an oaky, Elton John ballad piano. 1.43 And here's an odd twist: Venus buys a rake for herself in a garden centre (tell Alan Titchmarsh! - it's gardening as psychedelic therapy!), as some gospel backing singers provide sweet counterharmonies. That's the Furries all over. They're never afraid to make the mundane detail sounds magical. 4.07 "The end it comes too soon...for the end it comes too soon." Yes, they know they're good at this *- but it's about time we did too.

In Conclusion

Imagine a storyteller beginning to tell you a grand, fabulous narrative, but couching it in such vague, woozy details that he quickly loses his place. But he finds other places instead that are even more marvellous. They're lush and dreamy, poppy and rocky, and delivered with personality that's so warm and lovely that you want it with you forever.

did anybody see SFA at Cardiff Calling?

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/44804-interview-super-furry-animals

Dude, I love the band and appreciate talking about them, but you're basically spamming the board.

Aye. This album's quite good, but the constant bumping and linking of reviews etc is becoming REALLY tiresome. If people want to talk about them, they will.

sorry, thought it was useful- the interview is quite good.
Sorry again, maybe it's because I'm listening too much to Accelerator as it's the only track on my ipod.

Yes, I saw SFA at Cardiff Calling. Well, about 20 minutes of them anyway. Gruff's voice has improved. What I saw of them was very good, wish I could've stayed but had tickets for the Hold Steady in another part of Cardiff.

Good review, Nick, though I would give it a B+. Good to hear SFA to rock again in "Neo Consumer" or "Run-Away". It can make the way in my end of the year Top 10.

"Suckers" is a track Damon Albarn 1997-1999 "Blur-13" period would have killed for.

<i>Hey Venus by Super Furry Animals charted at 11. </i>

I did the chevron markings there on purpose. They look like christmas lights.

I think they wanted to get back in the public consciousness and they succeded in that with a very good album.

jeeeeesus, it's like me and nick on the 65DOS thread, but about an album that if anything is a sharply regressive step.

suckers is the best song on the album and it would have been the second-worst on 13, that's the level of disparity we're talking about here.

suckers is the worst song on Hey Venus! and it's slightly worse than Beetlebum.

why do you think suckers is the worst? because it's the only one to show any sort of sophistication? because it's the only one that isn't a 'simple pop thrill'?

beetlebum is several degrees of fahrenheit better than anything on this album, and is on a par with the weakest tracks on RATW.

Maybe you didn't get this album, really. The only problem with "Hey Venus!" is that it's not very ambitious.

Anyway is miles better than all the too ambitious pastiches of Mr. Dan Abnormal.

Probably I cannot explain myslef very clearly in English.

<i>I don't want to listen to this again but I may have to. How fucking complacent it sounded, though, how utterly insipid.

-- Just got offed, Friday, 24 August 2007 19:52 (2 weeks ago) Link</i>

out of interest how does music sound 'complacent' (other than by saying 'when it sounds like this album')?

Beetlebum is better than all bar about three SFA songs.

Every time this thread is bumped I keep expecting to be told they've split.

It sounds complacent because it sounds like SFA don't feel the need to innovate, to push themselves; it sounds like they've complacently decided to knock out a very straightforward pop album that'll sell nicely and get them some plaudits from the simplicity-loving British music press. It sounds like they expect everything they release to be a 'pop gem', whereas actually they're not working nearly as hard as they ought to be doing, either mentally or physically.

I think they wrote better songs for this one than any of the last three.

"Suckers" is not a bad song, just there's 8 better on this album than that.

<i>Beetlebum is better than all bar about three SFA songs.</i>

wrong. about 327.5 times wrong.

formatsorry

It sounds complacent because it sounds like SFA don't feel the need to innovate, to push themselves; it sounds like they've complacently decided to knock out a very straightforward pop album that'll sell nicely and get them some plaudits from the simplicity-loving British music press. It sounds like they expect everything they release to be a 'pop gem', whereas actually they're not working nearly as hard as they ought to be doing, either mentally or physically.

ok. i think there's a quote further up from gruff about how geoff travis asked for a 'pop album'. the rumours are they had 40 songs from which came 'hey venus' and (if we believe) the 'other album' coming pretty soon. so perhaps they not being complacent but being label-friendly for an album (or so).

seems interesting that with every album after 'radiator' there is substantial criticism that with each new album they haven't made the one they should-have/were-supposed-to-have made. if only they had really grasped how their career was supposed to have panned out... kind of 'must do better', when they really don't (forgive the ref) give a f*ck whether their career works out how critics think it should.

that's why i find puzzling the criticism that they are complacent. not giving a f*ck is the very opposite of complacency.

not giving a f*ck is the very opposite of complacency

no it isn't. complacency stems from a combination of increased self-worth, stagnation, and lack of thoroughness. one of the contributive factors to this is not giving a fuck about self-improvement.

at least all their other albums showed some form of progression!

at least all their other albums showed some form of progression!

well all the criticism of 'love kraft', for one, was that it wasn't progressing along the lines deemed to be the ones sfa should develop on. and what of the critical consensus (usually backed up on ilm) that their second album is their best? hardly an indication of subsequent progression.

is it that they are complacent if they don't do what listeners expect them to? listeners can be complacent too, in their expectation of "progression".

you might think the songs are stagnant, or not thorough (i don't agree: there are plenty of early sfa songs that are equally fluffy/poppy but that still have some substance), but how do the songs show "increased self-worth"? i suspect they don't, but your comments seem to imply you feel sfa haven't ticked the boxes you expected they would do.

i think they are one of the more rigorous-thinking bands around at the moment. they just ain't going to do progression in any other way other than their own. that doesn't make them complacent necessarily.

Hello Teflon Monkey, are you _the_ Teflon Monkey?

no we are all the small cat!

It's simpler than all that. This is the first SFA album I've heard that doesn't demonstrate that the band has extended its repertoire and done something it didn't (or couldn't) do before. Radiator may be viewed rightfully as their best (RATW being my subjective pick), but at least all their other albums showed an ambition to try something new. Hey Venus is comfort-zone complacency, full stop.

Far from fulfilling my expectations, I WANT SFA to confound them, to dash them, to create astonishing and unprecedented delights. This album merely undercuts them.

You are overthinking this, Louis, they are an indie pop band, not fucking Luciano Berio.

Also hey get this none of their other albums are particularly groundbreaking either. At the best (including RATW) they've always been about straightforward pop songs with added knobs on. Only difference this time is that they couldn't afford the knobs.

Perhaps they should have put a bagpipe solo, a symphony orchestra and a 2-step beat on Show Your Hand and then you would have been all 'OMG MIND BLOWING STRETCHING THE BOUNDARIES MAN!'

they're better than Bario.

Perhaps they should have put a bagpipe solo, a symphony orchestra and a 2-step beat on Show Your Hand and then you would have been all 'OMG MIND BLOWING STRETCHING THE BOUNDARIES MAN!'

You don't seem to understand what astonishes me in music. Gratuitous appendices are dull. The entire song must tend towards an original, exciting vision. Show Your Hand is a boring song, and with a bagpipe solo it would be a boring song with an annoying bagpipe solo.

RATW's pop songs are anything but straightforward in conception or execution, and the album as a whole works as one piece. It's not a case of tarting up verse-chorus pop with bizarre instrumentation. That album created wonder out of contrasting sound-patterns, great melodies/rhythms, and continual structural reconfiguration. Songs like 'No Sympathy' don't come about by logjamming a bit of techno onto a country song. The whole thing is a coherent, creative vision, and it flows beautifully.

they are an indie pop band

-- Matt DC, Friday, 14 September 2007

Also hey get this none of their other albums are particularly groundbreaking either. At the best (including RATW) they've always been about straightforward pop songs with added knobs on.

-- Matt DC, Friday, 14 September 2007

qft & lolz :D

Only difference this time is that they couldn't afford the knobs.

I thought they'd decided to leave the knobs off the 'hey venus' songs to make the album simpler, more direct. perhaps the next one will have knobs turned up to 11.

Songs like 'No Sympathy' don't come about by logjamming a bit of techno onto a country song.

Funny, I thought that was exactly what they did. That was in the middle of their phase of logjamming a bit of techno onto anything that wasn't nailed down, live at least.

Live, yeah, they were apt to do that, but on record, the way that 'No Sympathy' gradually and elegantly slips from one format into the other suggests planning, composition, and a coherent train of thought. It's not as simple as one stuck on the end of the other.

Yes I think they planned, composed and thought of it as well. Well done them.

Step away from the thread.

What I mean is that the whole song was conceived before being practiced or played; Rhys himself at the time said it was the best he'd written. It wasn't a simple case of sticking two disparate musical formats in juxtaposition; the two were merged, placed in healthy symbiosis, and made to suit rather than repel one another.

grr southall's weighing in too

ooh, grr is it?

(watches)

They're immense talents who've written and recorded an insane amount of quality music. They've had their low points recently, but the idea that they just arbitrarily destroy their music with noise or add it to sound weird really annoys me. It might not work for you, but I think that the abrasiveness apparent in some music coalesces beautifully. "The Piccolo Snare" is one of their best songs, and it ends in an excellent electronic outro.

If you want contrived, listen to that The Aliens album.

And Dom's presence wouldn't be missed in these threads. We get it, SFA are shit and belong in the wastebin with Shed 7. Fuck off with that. It's boring. They've proven themselves critically going on 10 years, and it's not due to charity.

They're immense talents who've written and recorded an insane amount of quality music. They've had their low points recently, but the idea that they just arbitrarily destroy their music with noise or add it to sound weird really annoys me. It might not work for you, but I think that the abrasiveness apparent in some music coalesces beautifully. "The Piccolo Snare" is one of their best songs, and it ends in an excellent electronic outro.

If you want contrived, listen to that The Aliens album.

every word OTM

"I am the robot man", no, you are the irritating berk I want to punch. Repeatedly.

I actually think they get better with every release, but it's my personal opinion...anyway they are one of the few consistent bands that more than 10 years into their career managed to stay coherent, have ideas and didn't lose their credibility.

Hey Venus! is just a reaction to LK, it's compelling and short, though maybe not THAT epic or ambitious. Still it has some of the best tunes of 2007 in it.

I was right with them until Love Kraft, but this new one's even less memorable than the last.

You're wrong, pft. They're not getting better. You're not even staying consistent with your opinion. It's "less ambitious" and less creative, yet somehow Hey Venus! is their best yet just because it's a reaction to what made them so memorable as musicians.

I love a lot of the songs off their last two (Zoom, Cabin Fever, Gift That Keeps On Giving, etc). They could just as easily have made their last two albums techno-based and we'd be sitting here talking about how they can't write simpler songs anymore. The Furries can't win!

Teflon- better cause they have always had the problem of writing concise and straightforward pop tunes; this time they did.

they have always had the problem of writing concise and straightforward pop tunes

This is a problem???

Firstly: they haven't. See: Fire In My Heart, The International Language of Screaming, even (Drawing) Rings Around The World (although despite its joyfully simple structure and bassline, is deceptively complex in terms of its sound), and many others. Secondly: their best work is the material of theirs that challenges 'pop', that evokes an original vision, and that marks them out as different. If everybody simply wrote 'concise and straightforward pop songs', we'd live in a very boring world. Fair play to them that they've written a few; they're good at them; but a whole album's worth? Give me a break.

Also, Cunga, I really, definitely would not be moaning if Hey Venus had been a (good, original) psychedelic techno freak-out.

Actually it is.

If they would have released a double album out of material from Love Kraft and Hey Venus! it would have been a perfect record; cause Hey Venus is strong where LK failed and they just seem complementary.

I think the only reason I'm not heartbroken about Hey Venus! is the fact that Candylion is pretty good and that Gruff's solo show rivals SFA at their best. He's just an incredible musician and showman.

Now, let me listen to my Ffa Coffi Pawb albums...

"Actually it is.

If they would have released a double album out of material from Love Kraft and Hey Venus! it would have been a perfect record; cause Hey Venus is strong where LK failed and they just seem complementary."

It's fine if you think this is their best record. Just don't expect many people to agree or care. I don't think they're headed down the right road with the multivocalist thing. Gruff just blows the other guys out of the water.

Maybe they "quit smoking" and acid and took coke.

I don't regard Hey Venus! as their best, still some critics have been too bad- it's a solid, concise and sunny record with top tunes in it.

pft OTM

what does otm stand for?

one track mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BANdftxuqlM

What do you think of Runaway video?

mwng is awesome

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dAvn-Xe3cZQ

Opener: Alternate Route To Vulcan Street >>> Zoom >>> Drygioni >>> Crazy Naked Girls >>> Hello Sunshine >>> God! Show Me Magic >>> Furryvision >>> Check It Out >>> The Gateway Song
Closer: Slow Life >>> Cabin Fever >>> Mountain People >>> the one on Mwng >>> Pric >>> Fragile Happiness >>> Keep the Cosmic Trigger Happy >>> For Now And Ever >>> Let The Wolves Howl At The Moon