Rings Around The World

Super Furry Animals’ fifth album is their first for Epic. It is also the first album, ever, to be released simultaneously on DVD as well as on conventional formats, a development that will doubtless cause great excitement in quarters other than mine. Indeed, I found it of greater import that the Furries’ last album, Mwng, was recorded entirely in Welsh, an endearingly reckless gesture for a pop band.

As it happens, the sense of mischief the band has thrived on since the start of their career has survived their return to the Queen’s English. Who else but the Furries, for instance, could contrive to sound like both Status Quo and Abba on the one song, as they do on the title track of the album, and still manage to sound wilfully contemporary?

Admittedly, there are some cringe-enducing moments on Rings Around The World, as one would expect from a band who have always claimed ELO as an influence. Even after several plays, I still can’t quite locate any irony on ‘It’s Not The End Of The World’, which basically counsels listeners to lay aside their problems and get on with life, the kind of sentiment I’ve always thought best left to the spiritually brain-dead like Up With People.

Thankfully, there are also songs like ‘Shoot Doris Day’ and ‘Run! Christian! Run!’ to remind us that the Furries are not actually quite as soft-centred as one might have feared.

The Furries’ choice of guest musicians is impeccable: the suddenly fashionable Paul McCartney chews celery on ‘Receptacle For The Respectable’, while John Cale does his sinister piano thing on ‘Presidential Suite’. The High Llamas’ Sean O’Hagan and Marcus Holdawy also contribute string arrangements to several tracks.

After several plays, favourite tracks on the album include ‘No Sympathy’, the infectious first single ‘Juxtaposed With U’, and the aforementioned ‘Presidential Suite’.

Super Furry Animals recently guested with Mr. Cale on the documentary, Beautiful Mistake. Movie buffs will be pleased to know that talents as diverse as the Dogme Collective, the Ministry of Truth and Dylan Jones have directed films for each of the songs on the new album. The DVD will probably be best enjoyed before it becomes as ubiquitous as that other briefly exciting experiment, the music video.