REVIEW: Super Furry Animals, Radiator (Flydaddy)
- Niles Baranowski
It's a bitch for Welsh bands in this fair country of ours. After one album and a compilation, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci were unceremoniously dropped from Mercury Records. Meanwhile, the 60 Ft. Dolls had their career stalled when DGC decided they weren't selling enough (and this doesn't even touch on the saga of the Manic Street Preachers or the legion of great bands who can't even get signed in America, especially Topper and Melys.)
Yet, there may be no band on the Welsh scene more unfairly treated than the Super Furry Animals. After their perky debut, Fuzzy Logic, their sophomore effort Radiator met with English success, yet Sony Records sat on it for nearly a year stateside. Despite a small, rabid following, they were quietly dropped, only to be nabbed by indie label Flydaddy (who will be releasing the follow-up to Radiator this summer), the home of Olivia Tremor Control among others.
Radiator will hopefully net the band some more attention and an increased following. It's the giddy, irresistable retro-pop record that Olivia and the other bands of the Elephant 6 collective have been racking their brains to write, so far unsuccessfully. Radiator surpasses recent American puttering in psychedelia, ranking with Blur's Parklife in terms of its offhanded acknowledgement of influences (everything from Zappa to Bowie to the Zombies), satirical sense of humor and accessibility.
Indeed, it's hard to see why Epic Records couldn't make a mint of off this album. In our post-Hanson age, the Jackson 5 chorus of "Play it Cool" seems like a perfect hit. "Chupacabra" glorifies goat-eating bats with a short'n'sweet power pop blast, and "Demons" combines Bowie's dark swagger with some slippery editing to make for a song that seems to be missing parts or about to collapse (in a good way, naturally) at any moment.
Part of the reason Radiator clicks so well is that the Furries come from a techno background rather than one of rock'n'roll. They chase individual sounds and hooks, rather than a style of songwriting. It's not perfect nostalgia -- "Mountain People" succumbs to an uncharacteristic barrage of noise at the end -- but it's all the more fun, since they're willing to cut out what doesn't work in favor of the fun and bouncy or at least the interestingly twisted. The Furries have raised the bar for those who traffic in reconstructing musical history, as well as Welsh rock; let's see if the upcoming releases from Catatonia, the Manics or anything Elephant 6 has to offer can follow suit.
