"These days, rock tends to be retro by default," a recent piece in The New York Times opined. That's obvious, but it doesn't go far enough. Most rock these days also tends to be slavishly monochromatic, whatever its template-- all the easier to file under nu-wave, nu-metal, post-rock, prog-rock, roots-rock, frat-rock, pop-punk, power-pop, hardcore, emo, screamo, post-screamo, or Gwyneth Paltrow-humping Radiohead-lite. Rare is the act that actually pulls together disparate threads for a sound that visits more than one or two of contemporary rock's Intarweb-abetted ghettoes.
Wales' Super Furry Animals are such a band. Like anyone, these multilingual electro-psych-glam-pop/rock pranksters have influences, amply documented on their 2005 Under the Influence comp: post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys, Electric Light Orchestra, the MC5, Underworld, Joey Beltram and...opera? Well, maybe. The difference is that SFA borrow their heroes' doggedly original aesthetic values as much as their easy sonic trademarks. Together, singer Gruff Rhys, guitarist Huw "Bunf" Bunford, bassist Guto Pryce, keyboardist Cian Ciárán, and drummer Dafydd Ieuan have crafted six anarchically experimental albums. Their label recently saw fit to reissue four of them, with bonus tracks, plus odds-and-sods comp Out Spaced.
1996's Fuzzy Logic introduced the world to the Super Furries' candy-factory chameleon act. Opener "God! Show Me Magic" wastes no time, kicking off practically mid-riff to the type of synth-laced punk-pop Supergrass or even Oasis fans could probably understand. The album's most infectious sing-along, "Something 4 the Weekend", appears here in a more rambunctious take than on the near-perfect single version. The album's lyrics span hamsters, "soul transplants," UFOs, village idiots, and "Hometown Unicorn" (a more psychedelic take on Blur's "This Is a Low"). The woozy Pipers-era Floyd of "Gathering Moss" swells into the poignant strings of "If You Don't Want Me to Destroy You". The latter half of the record is less consistent, but the slanted pop of "Mario Man" and the hazy "Long Gone" are still inimitably, idiosyncratically SFA.
A year later, Radiator saw the band beginning to master the art of the album. The song structure and production continue to increase in complexity-- encompassing piano-ballad melancholia, self-destructing folktronica, Bowie art-rock, and the punk urgency of the Jam or Buzzcocks-- but the sun-kissed '60s pop hooks remain as accessible as ever. Rhys's seeming joy in his own strangeness stirs sugar into the album's chemical cocktail, rendering songs about goat-sucking vampires, Marie Curie, and military coups in Sierra Leone surprisingly easy to swallow. Many would rank this as the band's finest album.
But that's Guerrilla. From the single-worthy supermarket psych of hidden pre-opening track "Citizens Band" to the long-delayed cymbal crash of brief final hidden track "Chewing Chewing Gum (Reprise)", 1999's Guerrilla takes the group's long-standing whimsicality to its logic-warping extreme. In their earliest days, SFA formed as a techno group, and Guerrilla sees those impulses merging with the band's previous sunny guitar-pop. Here the group do seemingly everything, and well: near-perfect sunny pop ("Do or Die"), soaring Brit balladry that makes slow service a kind of apotheosis ("Turning Tide"), horn-laden tropicalia ("Northern Lites"), floor-slapping LSD-infused electronica ("Wherever I Lay My Phone"), hula-dancing drum-and-bass ("The Door to This House Remains Open") and country endearments ("Fire in My Heart"). The album's many gags and eccentricities, like opener "Check It Out" or the 22-second oddity of "The Sound of Life Today", give it the playful feel of a hip-hop record, with its requisite skits. Guerrilla is an alternate universe to get lost in.
Between Radiator and Guerrilla, the Super Furries released Out Spaced, which culls together Fuzzy Logic B-sides and tracks from their earliest EPs. Like UK contemporaries Oasis, Blur, or Radiohead, SFA boast plenty of non-album tracks that stand up to their strongest material. Out Spaced is, along with later singles comp Songbook, sequenced as an album rather than chronologically, and leads with riotously profane Steely Dan-sampling single "The Man Don't Give a Fuck". Two tracks later, the vaguely danceable "Smokin'" has a similarly repetitive, unwholesome tagline: "I just want to smoke it." "Don't Be a Fool, Billy" could sit comfortably beside any of the band's up-tempo songs, while "Carry the Can" is a good-naturedly bombastic ballad the likes of "Turning Tide" or "It's Not the End of the World". A few of the songs are in Welsh, such as the strangely compelling 11-minute closing track, spell-check-defying "'Blewytirhwng?", but everything the Super Furries do could be in another language.
Especially when, as on "Blewytirhwng?" (thanks, copy-and-paste!), it's actually in another language. Like, what'd I say, Welsh? SFA recorded 2000's largely acoustic Mwng entirely in that ancient Brithonic tongue, and it's-- startlingly-- as easy to enjoy as their English works. Single "Ysbeidiau Heulog", which predicted the wooly-bully ? and the Mysterians garage rock of bands like the Caesars, is the standout, but sinuous pop melodies and organic arrangements that do more with less than the band's usual studio wizardry make for an exciting discovery almost all the way through. The chutes-and-ladders chorus of "Ymaelodi â'r Ymylon" is a particular favorite.
So yeah, like I mentioned earlier, these reissues include some bonus tracks, too. As is generally the case with lost B-sides, they're really just for hardcore fans. But many of those listeners will be overjoyed to discover songs that somehow missed the Out Spaced cut: perky, Spinal Tap-referencing "Waiting to Happen" from the extended Fuzzy Logic; Syd Barrett-esque alphabet song "No K", optimistic Jurassic space-rocker "Hit and Run", and bright classic "Wrap It Up" ("They call me the dealer/ I mean I deals in ideals") from Radiator. Guerrilla's offerings pale beside the original album, but do manage to scratch the itch for more SFA: shiny, distorted mid-tempo number "This, That and the Other", piano-accented bounder "Missunderstanding (sic), and the inescapably sha-la-la-ing "Colorblind". Mwng comes with a bonus disc, but it's the same one North American listeners got upon its initial release, featuring "Sali Mali" and "Calimero".
Where does this leave the Super Furries' legacy? Newbies should probably still start with the just-out singles compilation, Songbook. Then, despite getting short shrift in some circles, 2001 major-label debut Rings Around the World is the next entry point, adhering to the catch-all Guerrilla template and tossing in some of the group's catchiest, most accessible songs in the bargain. But notice all those 8's up there: The Super Furries have recorded so much great music, but their limitless sonic adventurism has never yielded an album that was completely unassailable-- even Guerrilla. Maybe that's too much to expect, or contrary to the band's don't-give-a-fuck vision. Surely the Perfect Album rock ideal isn't "retro"? In the wake of 2003's disappointing Phantom Power, some of us still hold out hope. After all, as Rhys sings at the end of Fuzzy Logic: "We'll be together/ For now and ever".
