Super Furry Animals

The Welsh quintet Super Furry Animals are one of the most inventive bands of their era, exploring new musical avenues with each release and each passing year. They have drawn inspiration from throughout the history of rock music, to say nothing of their huge electronic influences, and have consistently created compelling albums and songs within each idiom through which they pass.

Having formed from the ashes of a number of bands, including a noise-rock outfit and a techno group, SFA released their first EP, the impossibly-named Lianfairpwllgywgyllgogerchwymdrobwlltysiliogo-ygoyocynygofod (In Space) in 1995. They inked to Creation and kick-started their English-language catalog with Fuzzy Logic in 1996. Its unique punk- and power-pop-influenced tunes floated lysergic patterns and engaging lyrics about off-beat subjects, and the sound was furthered and expanded on the fine sophomore slab Radiator in 1997. 1999's Guerrilla was reportedly recorded only when the sun was shining, at Peter Gabriel's Real World studios, and added a decidedly technological edge to the group's music with an increased focus on electronic rhythms and textures spun together with a sharpened pop hilarity.

But then the group took another turn with its music as its label Creation folded; retreating to the moors of its homeland, the band recorded the Welsh-language Mwng for 6,000 quid in local studios. But hey, lo-fi and less-spoken language doesn't dim the album's appeal. It becomes the highest-selling Welsh-language album of all time, earning them a mention in a Parliament session.

Not to stay pointed in one direction for very long, the group's sixth album Rings Around The World was its slick, produced major-label debut, which sacrificed a tad of the earlier punkish rockula for a perfectly executed widescreen distillation of the group's talents. Eardrum-blazing techno merged with somber acoustic balladry; death-metal codas sat next to five-part pop opuses; sexually charged, thumping instrumentals and gospel-chorused classic rock songs all crashed together in a ponderous, life-affirming stew.

SFA upped the ante once again in 2003, with the space-rock epic "Phantom Power," which took the group's songwriting and arrangement skills to another planet, treating the world to a host of multi-faceted anthems.

They continues to explore the edges of the pop and rock universe, and they put on a great concert. What more could you want?

Album reviews

Love Kraft
XL Recordings (2005)
SFA hands around the mic for a deliciously democratic seventh album - it's a sunny psychedelic party all comers can enjoy.

Phantom Power
XL/Beggars Group (2003)
Rocks are slow life: welcome back the fuzzy animals. Read interview here, and review of Phantom Power here.

Rings Around The World (Recommended)
Epic (2001)
The Super Furry Animals never cease to amaze.

Mwng
Placid Casual (2000)
The Super Furry Animals' fourth full-length album, Mwng, is a home-cooked affair.

Guerrilla
Flydaddy (1999)
Guerrilla could go a long way in helping the cause, its contents some of the most cohesive, all-encompassing blasts of brilliance to be released in a long time.

Out Spaced
Creation (1998)
Out Spaced is yet another tribute to the amazing career of the Super Furry Animals.

Radiator (Recommended)
Creation (1997)
Whether you call this music post-alternative, britpop or just fun rock, it's definitely one of the most original records of its kind to come out in the '90s.

Fuzzy Logic
Creation (1996)
Super Furry Animals would go on to hone their sound on subsequent releases like Radiator and stretch it out on 1999's Guerrilla, but their debut remains eerily relevant as a benchmark of pop creativity in the '90s. Originality, thy name is Furry.

Interviews

Unleashing Their Power
July 26, 2003
Two months prior to the release of sixth album Phantom Power, two of the animals hold court with NATN.

Drawing Rings Around The World
July 28, 2001
Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys comes clean about his group's most ambitious project to date, a surround-sound CD and DVD fifth album.

Concert reviews

April 24, 2002
Irving Plaza, New York
In a mere 90 minutes, Super Furry Animals were able to wreak havoc on genre boundaries and thoroughly entertain a plaza-full of its growing multitudes of fans.