SUPER FURRY ANIMALS - Love Kraft

With six studio albums, a b-sides collection and a best-of released just a few months ago, Welsh outfit Super Furry Animals are one of the most important bulwarks against the dominance of England and Scotland in the UK pop scene. They're certainly the most defiant: just think of the famous "Mwng", sung entirely in the language of Cardiff, or the bilingual booklets in which Welsh precedes English.

Now they're back with their seventh album, and "Love Kraft" marks an important comeback after the minor misstep of "Phantom Power", an album that wasn't bad, just underwhelming. Don't expect major changes, though: the formula is still the well-known one. Solid, in fact rock-solid pop craftsmanship, songwriting that blends flair with reflection, particular attention to arrangements and choruses (yes, those mysterious, unfashionable objects some people call refrains).

If the new album isn't exactly a step back compared to "Phantom Power", that's mostly down to the Motown soul influences that had shaped "Rings Around The World", a well from which Rhys and co. wisely decide not to draw again this time. So perhaps we're talking two steps back, but the kind of steps back taken while still looking forward, the kind that inevitably land you somewhere different, somewhere you've never set foot before. Even if, yes, it's still the same road. All this preamble is meant to give a sense of the path that led to "Love Kraft", a record that's new, old, similar and different. As the sharper-eyed among you will have noticed, that second pairing is only an apparent oxymoron, since "similar" isn't "identical". And it's precisely in that small gap between the two adjectives that "Love Kraft" plays out its game, a game it substantially wins, thanks first of all to the band, but also to its collaborators. Alongside the core quintet, in fact, are Mario Caldato, a frequent Beastie Boys producer who also handled the mix on "Phantom Power", and Sean O'Hagan, one of the most brilliant string arrangers around, leader of the High Llamas, occasional member and co-writer with Stereolab, and no stranger to working alongside the Super Furry crew.

Another peculiarity is that it's often not Gruff Rhys singing: to be precise, the frontman takes only a little over half of the lead vocal parts. "Atomik Lust" is sung by Dafydd Ieuan, "The Horn" and "Back On A Roll" by Huw Bunford, "Walk You Home" and "Cabin Fever" by Cian Ciáran. This works in the album's favour in the final reckoning.

But let's get to the record's highlights, like the opening "Zoom!", a classic slice of superfurry opener. Seductive, vaguely psychedelic melodies straddling the Sixties and Seventies, the vocals entering after more than a minute, embroideries of organ, strings and horns (courtesy of Sean O'Hagan), backing vocals. Yes, Super Furry Animals are back, and the Muse of Pop hasn't lost focus. "The Horn" is a breezy, rousing, almost Beatles-esque chorus that soundtracks a drive through the countryside. A road song with a grin plastered on its face and wind in its hair. "Ohio Heat" and "Frequency": choruses drawn with a compass, ready to sing along to by the second listen.

Melancholy reflections, old-fashioned strings and female backing vocals accompany a particularly wistful Ciáran on "Walk You Home", a two-faced track that swerves almost without warning into a sweet, lilting refrain. These changes of direction are a trademark of both Super Furry Animals and O'Hagan, once again flawless in his orchestrations - perhaps even too flawless.

More upbeat and decidedly Blur-style is the single "Lazer Beam", with a redemptive gospel chorus lifted wholesale and paired with sci-fi noises. Messianic messages mixed with utopian science fiction. Delirious and euphoric.

Also worth noting are "Oi Frango", a lively instrumental, and "Back On A Roll", a stroll through the narrow territory between the Beatles and Colin Moulding (XTC).

So much for the merits. Super Furry Animals' flaws, on the other hand, are the familiar ones, perhaps a little more evident now that almost ten years have passed since their earliest releases: an excessive tendency towards stasis, and songs that are consistently good but struggle to stick in the memory even after many listens. Pop is a genre that often makes considered lightness its strong suit: Rhys and co. have always stubbornly steered clear of that lightness. A brave choice, admirable even, but not always a happy one. In the end it wears you down a little, and the unflappable, imperturbable predictability of the programme is disrupted only by the guitar and the coda of "Cloudberries".

It bears repeating, though, because it's worth saying: whatever Super Furry Animals lack in originality and capacity for reinvention - and that's no small thing - they make up for with a class and compositional skill you don't come across every day.

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30/04/2026