Super Furry Animals: Songbook: The Singles, Volume One

By Donna Quesada

For Super Furry Animals fans, this collection of 21 songs is a bountiful offering of what may modestly be called greatest hits, since it must be some other, more colorful planetoid that made these spiraling rainbow songs “hits.” All taken from albums dating back to their ’96 debut, songs ranging from echo-y techno trips to Beatles-esque summer day pop take you through imaginary landscapes where you’re first running down grassy hills with daisy chains, then suddenly whirling inside an Arabian circus with electronic clarinets.

When you think you’re stuck in a wine-infused dream, the experimentalism gives way to warm Beach Boy harmonies, as in the lavish “Slow Life,” or the bass-y “Ice Hockey Hair,” whose effected verses open up to a soaring chorus. In live show favorite “The Man Don’t Give a Fuck,” reverb-laden lamentations of self-pity slide into a groovy dance party sing-along, complete with tambourine.

Throughout the unique and diversified textures, the Furry Animals are grounded by their Brit-pop sound. Songs like the tropical “Northern Lites” are reminiscent of fellow Brits and feel-good ’80s band, The Style Council. And the happy opener on the album, “Something 4 the Weekend,” starts in with the catchy nervousness of ’70s Brit band XTC.

The Furry Animals embrace their undeniable Britishness and only two of the featured selections on this album are sung in their native Welsh. Altogether, Brit-pop was never more consistently creative or enjoyable, and to think we can look forward to volume two.

Grade: A

Songbook: The Singles, Volume One is currently available.