:: Track Listing

1. Zoom!
2. Atomik Lust
3. The Horn
4. Ohio Heat
5. Walk You Home
6. Lazer Beam
7. Frequency
8. Oi Frango
9. Psyclone!
10. Back on a Roll
11. Cloudberries
12. Cabin Fever


:: Record Review

Super Furry Animals

Love Kraft
(XL; 2005)

Rating: 83%
Combined Rating: 80%


All things considered, is there really any point to me writing a review of the new Super Furry Animals record? There’s some good television on, a buddy just called to see if I wanted to get a beer, and it’s not like anyone is reading this to help them determine whether or not Love Kraft is any good. In fact, a tiny part of me was actually wishing that the seventh Super Furry Animals studio album would be a Make Believe-style catastrophe calling the legitimacy of their older records into question, if only because the review would have been a lot more fun to write. The Super Furry Animals make really good records. Six Feet Under is depressing. The Kansas City Royals are horrible. Ho fucking hum.

Love Kraft is the first Super Furry Animals release since 2003’s typically fantastic Phantom Power, and it comes hot off the heels of a 2004 marketing blitz that saw the release of a singles compilation, reissues of their back catalog, and one of those “Under the Influence” mixes in addition to frontman Gruff Rhys’s very good solo album. Kraft was also recorded in Spain and Rio de Janeiro; the first sound you hear is that of guitarist Huw Bunford diving into a swimming pool. Rough life! Such states of relaxation might help to explain why Kraft is easily the Furries’ most chill record to date. The focus is almost entirely on slower tempos and hazy ambience, and barring first single “Lazer Beam,” the infectious energy of Radiator and Fuzzy Logic has mostly been retired in favor of lush production values with a now-heavy emphasis on Sean O’Hagan’s strings.

In the interest of not beating around the bush, I’ll come right out and say that it’s taken two weeks for me to determine that Kraft seems to be lacking a touch of that extra magic that I’ve come to associate with my favorite SFA discs, though I’d hardly fault anyone for thinking otherwise.

There is however nothing lacking from the production values that went into making this record. Even by SFA’s lofty standards, the production on Love Kraft is little short of incredible; producing new sounds with every subsequent listen and establishing itself as the definitive SFA record you want to have in your headphones when the sandman beckons. Much of this has to do with an increased reliance on High Llama Sean O’Hagan’s orchestration. The string arrangements on the last minute and ten seconds of the soul ballad “Walk You Home” are positively Gershwin-esque, creating a degree of lushness to the proceedings the likes of which this band has seldom approached. Equally impressive is opener “Zoom!” a gloomy nephew of Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” that contains within its seven minutes both an epic string arrangement and a contribution from a Catalan choir. These two sounds overlap with squealing guitar solos in the song’s closing minutes to create a cacophonous noise of despair; a theme which will soon reassert itself throughout several of the record's twelve tracks.

I will remind you once again that this is a Super Furry Animals record. The fantastic production is more or less a given, and with the exception of a pointless instrumental that sounds like it was rescued from the studio floor (“Oi Frango”), nearly every song is good (Ed: not so much "Back on a Roll," but then there's "Cloudberries," hallelujah). So what exactly is there to gripe about?

Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is that in addition to crafting excellent albums, the Super Furry Animals have always been a hell of a singles band (as evidenced by last year’s Songbook). Unfortunately, “Lazer Beam” (completely excellent Tron-inspired video aside) is one of their weakest singles to date. An electronic mish-mash with a forgettable verse and shouted gibberish chorus, it might actually be annoying, a quality I would never otherwise associate with Super Furry Animals singles. It’s also completely out of step with the mood of the album, and practically screams First Single! as a result.

And about that mood --- the aura of Kraft can be summed up in a single word: melancholy. This is not the fiery “suck my oil!” polemic exhibited in 2003, but rather a defeated version of the Furries. Now they can only blithely watch by the sidelines as the world goes to shit, a single tear running down their collective cheek. You can hear this in the burnt out universe comprising the languid “Zoom!” in which Gruff Rhys witnesses the Virgin Mary crying blood while he asks to be kissed with “apocalypse.” Grimmer still is “Atomik Lust,” a mournful ditty contemplating the inevitability of nuclear war that’s only given a jump start when it’s rammed by a wall of angry guitars (shades of Rings Around the World's “Sidewalk Serfer Girl”). The otherwise catchy west coast gallop of “Ohio Heat” is really about an unwanted pregnancy, and even the “The Horn,” a jaunty sea shanty that encourages the listener to "go with the flow," seems to portent an impending dread.

As such, Kraft is more than a little heavy going over the course of its 12 tracks, despite the near universal quality the songs. Fortunately, album centerpiece “Frequency” is a welcome break from the cloud cover. It’s a tropical tinged number in which a harmonious chorus speaks of goodness and hope over beds of strings and guitarist Huw Bunford’s uplifting cries of “frequency!” over Rhys’s lead vocal. The latter is a classic SFA magic moment; on par with such notable instances as the glorious verse reprise at the end of “Ice Hockey Hair” or when the trumpets come in on “Demons.”

Really, my gripes with Kraft stem more from personal preference as opposed to the record containing genuine flaws. The mood is overly dreary and it lacks a classic single, but I could just as easily imagine long time fans considering it to be one of their finest efforts. Such an argument could be made for any one of the Super Furries’ albums, or to go all Orwellian on your ass, all Super Furry Animals records are equal, though some are more equal than others. Love Kraft is simply just another feather in their cap --- which, in the case of this band, is more than enough.

David M. Goldstein :: 26 August 2005 |