They'll give you merry hell (original) (raw)

Super Furry Animals Phantom Power

Somehow, the Super Furry Animals have never been seen as a serious band. Perhaps it was the Welsh quintet's penchant for blaring techno out of tanks at festivals, their patronage of Howard Marks or their use of cartoonist Pete Fowler's oddball beast-figures to illustrate their records.

Or perhaps it was down to the songs themselves: cheery and lush with horns and echoes of rave music, but heavily indebted to the American early Seventies (well before they were cool again). The songs were about all sorts of whimsical things too - when they weren't sung in Welsh. The band's name never quite cried out 'voice of a generation', either. By being so entertaining, so multivalent, SFA seriously missed out on stature.

No more. The sixth SFA album is an astonishing thing, a sunny summer record about love and war. It deserves to ring out loudly from all the stereos in the land (preferably in the Furries' favoured quadrophonic sound) and to finally establish them as a desperately important British group.

Of course, the Furries remain playful. Few bands would release a bounding, dog-themed stomp as a single ('Golden Retriever'), or title a song after 'Venus and Serena' Williams. The strangeness doesn't stop there. There's a merry road trip to Vilnius in 'Valet Parking'. 'Hello Sunshine', the album's gloriously hazy opener, contains a particularly exultant bit of pop- cultural nonsense: 'I'm a minger/ You're a minger too/ So come on minger/ I want to ming with you.'

They like toys, too. Phantom Power is also available as a sumptuously drawn 'listening booth' DVD with inter-song animations (Pete Fowler again). This is actually a small step down in ambition from 2001's technology-themed opus, Rings Around The World - a grandiose record that squeezed visuals and surround-sound out of the format until their record company's pips squeaked.

Over the top? Yes, and trainspottery too: Phantom Power apparently began life as a song cycle around the chord progression D-A-D-D-A-D. The album's two lilting, string-drenched instrumentals are both called 'Father, Father'.

But within this body of impish creativity beats a heart in deep shadow. Radiohead's Hail To The Thief revealed one worried father - Thom Yorke - taking in the Today programme and CNN with amplifying dismay and disgust. Furries singer Gruff Rhys was tuning in too. And so Phantom Power reflects the sense that we are all headed for hell in a souped-up handcart. The title refers in part, to sinister éminences grises in the driving seat. Strewn in among the ineffably lovely Sixties harmonies and pop romps are ugly buzzwords ('cluster-fuck you') and apocalyptic visions of blood-filled seas and men wrapped 'in tarnished flags/ Banners and body bags'.

'Out Of Control' sees SFA virtually turning into Primal Scream, accusatory and rock'n'roll. 'The Piccolo Snare' is almost unbearable, so moving is its marriage of harmonic chamber pop and understated violence.

So Phantom Power is, in part, about the Gulf. But it's also about 'the gulf between me and you', containing more personal heartbreak than any Super Furry Animals record thus far. The links between foundering relationships and a strife-torn world run deep in Phantom Power, and Gruff mourns both with equal warmth and bewilderment.

The beauty of it, though, is that Phantom Power is not heavy going. 'Golden Retriever' is actually a pretty bitter song about a gold-digger, but you'd never know it: it convinces as joyous, shaggy pop. 'The Undefeated' contains wise words for superpowers and lovers alike, but couches them in joyful fripperies, a little reggae, LFO-style digitals, blaring horns and (on the DVD) a cartoon about a Mexican wrestler.

A state of the world address with ba ba ba's, a summer album with bloodstains, Phantom Power is a tremendous record that should confirm Super Furry Animals as national treasures. 'Every animal has its day,' reflects Gruff on 'The Undefeated': the Super Furry Animals are long overdue theirs.

· To order Phantom Power for £14.99 incl. p&p, call the Observer Music Service on 0870 066 7813