Furrys 'pull off screwball'

By Kelsey Whipple

Published Sept. 7, 2007

Super Furry Animals have always been as serious as their name and twice as interesting. Since their 1993 inception, the five reliably ridiculous lads from Cardiff, Wales have released two albums entirely in Welsh, gone down in the Guinness Book of World Records with the longest EP title in history, recruited Paul McCartney for a "carrot and celery rhythm track" and simultaneously been praised by Parliament and the cult legions of prog pop.

So what's next?

If you buy into the plug, the Furrys' newest album, Hey Venus!, is somewhat of a concept album that follows musical mascot Venus through the ups and downs of life as a goddess in the real world. Whatever you choose to believe, it was high time for the Super Furry Animals, formerly tied to Alan McGee's Creation Records, to start over.

On the band's first Rough Trade release, the telltale signs of tomfoolery are all still there, and most of them still work. For example, take the use of the electric saz, a Dr. Seuss-like instrument of Turkish origin, on tricky track "Into the Night." The bad news is that for Gruff Rhys and crew, it seems the time has come to scrap the drugs and stick to being high on life.

And on Hey Venus!, that's what the Furrys, who pushed past NME buzz-band status ages ago, do in true Beach Boys fashion. "Run Away" oozes the surf rock doo-wop of the '60s. It's not a hard song to understand, but taken any further, it might have been hard to stomach.

This is not so for the opening track, "The Gateway Song." The lyrics, consisting mostly of "this song is a gateway song" repeated, are Furrys classics — frivolous, maybe, but fun, definitely.

If there is a moral to the Super Furrys' story, it is that innovation is a great and terrible thing, and, in the end, not every band is Radiohead. The Furrys have changed their game more often than the music press has changed its mind, and Hey Venus! is no exception.

So, it's safe to say they're not going to join a gang anytime soon, but there's nothing wrong with the Furrys' new direction. Not all songs have to throw listeners into a tizzy, but a couple, such as the schmaltzy "Suckers," get uncomfortably close to treading on guilty-pleasure territory.

The album's standout track is easily "Baby Ate My Eightball," on which lead guitarist Huw Bunford imitates the siren of an ambulance coming to pick up the title tot. It's exactly this mammoth blend of unease and the unnecessary that keeps the Super Furry Animals peerless.

You've got to hand it to them: Not every band can pull off screwball.