Super Furry Animals
Phantom Power
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Super Furry Animals
Phantom Power
XL/Beggars Group, 2003
RiYL: Olivia Tremor Control, Dukes Of Stratosphear, psychedelic-era Beatles |
If you haven't guessed by now, the Super Furry Animals are growing up. Phantom Power is their sixth studio album, and the follow-up to the highly touted Rings Around The World, whose slick production and elegant arrangements raised some critical eyebrows while facilitating a quasi-breakthrough in the U.S. (Rings sold more copies Stateside than the rest of the group's albums combined).
Fortunately, the experimental Welsh quintet is aging well. Sure, the elaborate, polished sound of Phantom Power is a far leap from the rabid power-pop hybrid that filled Fuzzy Logic and Radiator. But it shares the same adventurous spirit that has held the group in good stead throughout its career.
The difference at this late date is that it doesn't come as a complete surprise when the band makes stylistic left turns within songs, exploding into an unexpected bridge or sliding into a deconstructive techno coda. And Rings was so good at presenting a polished amalgam of SFA's many muses that Phantom would be hard-pressed to measure up. But the Super Furries know what they're doing. They play to their strengths on the new album, concentrating on the sonic intricacy of each song, and resulting in yet another shining psychedelic opus.
Rings was such an emphatically grandiose statement of an album that Phantom Power by comparison (as likely to be reflected in dozens of reviews) seems destined to glow slightly paler. But in reality, it's just as accomplished and affecting. Think of it as the Magical Mystery Tour to Rings' Sgt. Pepper -- sure, it may not be as groundbreaking or wholly impressive as its predecessor, but Phantom Power's songs are indispensible and in a number of cases, rank among the group's best work.
In another sense, it's the Radiator to the last album's Fuzzy Logic. One album after going all-out with expensive studio embellishments for their (major-label) debut, SFA decided to scale things down and record more on their own terms. It's not homespun in the sense of the group's mostly acoustic Welsh-language Mwng, but Phantom Power has the sound of a group comfortable in its surroundings and with its sense of purpose.
Opener "Hello Sunshine" begins with a soft crooning sample of '60s group Wendy & Bonnie, and proves a modest intro along the lines of Rings' opening salvo "Alternate Route To Vulcan Street." Lead vocalist Gruff Rhys intones a melodic plea for general happiness after a long dark spell, perhaps motivated by the world's not-so-sunshiney recent political climate. Directly afterward comes the one-two punch of jaunty American travelogue "Liberty Belle" and the first single, the crunchy, proggy "Golden Retriever." The former looks at the human condition from the perspective of a bird who is oblivious to our dramas (the last chorus is a nod to what such a creature would think of Sept. 11: "As the ashes fly from New York City / past the grimy clouds above New Jersey / past the kids who like to smoke like chimneys / to the sky."
But it's only then that Phantom Power slides into its meaty filling. "Sex, War, & Robots" is a space-country epic with a lead vocal by guitarist Huw Bunford (his first on an SFA album), and the hazy pedal steel guitar lines mesh colorfully with Bunf's distorted vocals to provide an early highlight. The slick tempo change that heralds the "if tears could kill / i'd be a long time gone" bridge is priceless.
Next up are "The Piccolo Snare" and "Venus And Serena," two six-minute-plus powerhouses that form an effective dark/light juxtaposition. The former seems to be about the pointlessness of war. It chugs along in minor-key gloominess until the 1.40 mark, Rhys chanting lyrics like "Have you ever seen the sea / painted red by a bleeding army? / Sky hawks gather for a feast / of pawns who will never find peace," down to the guys who play the piccolo and snare drum in the marching army. But the pawns seem to have found a way out by the attractive chorus of "Now! We can go home again / to our old haunts again / Together." Then about four minutes in, the song mutates into an electronic remix section which wordlessly comments on the war's aftermath.
"Venus And Serena," on the other hand, is an effusively upbeat tune that does use tennis metaphors ("keep your eye upon the ball") but is really -- according to Rhys -- about a child raised by wolves who can't connect with his adopted family as much as his pet turtles, named...well, you guess.
Two short instrumentals titled "Father Father" accentuate the album's flow and hint at its genesis: one of the original concepts for Phantom Power was that it should be a song cycle entirely written in the DADDAD guitar tuning (get it?). The idea was rerouted through the course of the album's creation, but the instrumentals, along with "Hello Sunshine," "Golden Retriever," the hard rocker "Out Of Control" and the elegant, majestic "City Scape Sky Baby" survived and made the final cut.
Buzzy highway ode "Valet Parking" and the super-ska thumper "The Undefeated" spark up the latter half of the album, but the real gem is closer "Slow Life." Born of an electronic composition by group techno-head Cian Ciaran, the song builds its regal melody through a series of vocal/band segments, between which the electronic portions boil and simmer, various burbles and squelches tumbling around inside one's headphones. All the elements join together for the climax, and then trail off one by one, like band members leaving the stage until the listener is left with the song's main motif, sketched once more by quavering strings. Genius stuff.
So, as bands may continue to age and mature and grow out of what made them special, the Super Furry Animals continue to frolic across the vast landscape of rock and pop music, dreaming up new fantasies, seeking out untraveled paths through the wilderness and never forgetting to pause and smell the flowers on the way.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.