Heroes Among Us
Super Furry Animals Bring the Funk
Just when you think there is no hope, that humanity itself is about to meet a fateful end, the Super Furry Animals come swooping in to rescue us all from stale, boring music. Leaping unoriginal pop records in a single bound, the Super Furry Animals stake their claim in funky psychedelic songs. Their latest album, Dark Nights/Light Years (Rough Trade) is due out April 14th on iTunes, and April 21st on vinyl.
The dance beats and psychedelic rhythms that form a continuous groove throughout the entire record. Opening with a track entitled “Crazy Naked Girls” – the title alone made me love it – Super Furry Animals prove themselves as quirky artists fusing some familiar sounds into an entirely new concoction. Although not a lyrical masterpiece, it’s a great tune to move to. Plus, I love a man that can sing in falsetto for an entire song.
As soon as the second track, called “Mt.,” begins I reach the assumption that these guys do A LOT of drugs, and by the end of the track I’m seeing sounds and hearing colors, too. I also commend SFA on their use of Erhu – if you don’t know what an Erhu is, it’s a two-stringed Chinese instrument played with a bow, kind of like a cello. By the second chorus, I’m hooked on this song. (Or maybe the steady riffs on the Erhu have altered my consciousness? What better way to achieve mind control of your listeners than to hypnotize them unexpectedly with unique instruments!)
Unlike a Justin Timberlake record, there is only one cameo on Dark Nights/Light Years. “Inaugural Trams,” the first single off the album, features Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy who lends his voice to the song in the form of a spoken word appearance which he performs entirely in German. This song also gives a nod to the current political scene with lines such as “The streets of your hands will never feel a recession” among others. If only having Super Furry Animals on our side meant that the rest of us could avoid a recession… if only…
As much as I love this record, there are times when I get lost in the psychedelic swirls of SFA’s longer tracks. “Cardiff in the Sun” and “Pric,” the final song, have the least vocals of any of the other tracks, and are also the two longest. “Pric” also culminates in its final 3:53 with ambient echoes that sound like a voice speaking from the bottom of a well. I was bored mid-way into each of them because there weren’t enough vocals or variations in sound to keep me interested, or to set them apart from the rest of the album. Luckily it only amounted to about 17 minutes of my time.
With Super Furry Animals the good far outweighs the bad, though. “Helium Hearts” and “Where Do You Want to Go?” are the most upbeat tracks on the record. I tend to judge good music on whether or not I could stand it on an extended road trip, and “Where Do You Want to go?” is a track that I could blast out of my open car windows. “Helium Hearts” is the most “feel good” song with lyrics like “It’s cool to find what keeps us all together” – peace and love are not dead.
Anyone who’s a fan of Beck, Machine 475 or The Flaming Lips will fall absolutely in love with this record – it’s one of the few recent albums I’ve been able to listen to from start to finish without wanting to pull out my hair in a long time. So can Super Furry Animals use their powers to save the world? Maybe not the way it is right now, but we’ll have one hell of a party while the experts try and figure out everything else.
For an mp3 of “Inaugural Trams” head to superfurry.com/tracks/inauguraltrams.mps. For photos check out www.beggarsgroupusa.com/press.
