SUPER FURRY ANIMALS love kraft

One of the less-famous Gorillaz collaborators on this year's Plastic Beach was Gruff Rhys. Kind of appropriate that a Super Furry Animal would team up with Gorillaz when you think about it. Here's a review of one of his own records...

With Super Furry Animals you only have to glance at the song titles to know you’re in for a good time: ‘Zoom!’, ‘Atomik Lust’, ‘Lazer Beam’, ‘Psyclone’ and ‘Cloudberries’ all promise the usual mix of pop and psychedelia we’ve come to expect from the Welsh wizards. I’m pleased to report that the music makes good on that promise.

Love Kraft opens with a luscious sploshing noise and then ‘Zoom!’ begins to unfold, laden with organ, horns, celestial choir and Gruff’s chants of “I can’t get enough of this / kiss me with apocalypse”. It’s classic Furry stuff: catchy, absurd and yet faintly unsettling too. Soon after ‘The Horn’ pipes up like a gloriously twisted nursery rhyme. Close your eyes and you can see oompa loompas marching down Welsh mountains singing the round robin words with happy abandon (“Go, go with the flow, la-la-la-la-la-la”).

The album reveals new treats with each listen but special mention must go to the deep funk of ‘Psyclone!’ for the lyrics alone. Gruff starts by warning a pterradactyl, brontosaurus and tyrannosaurus rex of an incoming meteorite and then implores a chicken to negotiate with invading aliens. Afterall, “Time is chicken, ticking away” he explains. And somehow, coming from him, you know exactly what that means.

If this album was a cat it would woof.

By Andy McLean. Copyright reserved by author.
Article first published in The Brag, Sydney, 2004.

Love Kraft is available through Shock Records.