Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus! (Rough Trade)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
'Hey Venus!' has a 'Gateway Song' at its start. It's brash falsetto pop purpose is that it 'brings us up nicely to the harder stuff' on what is probably their best album since 'Mwng', and works similarly to 'This Is Just The Beginning' on SFA frontman Gruff Rhys' solo album 'Candylion' from earlier this year - i.e. brilliantly. The importance of that solo LP in regaining the fun to be had in jaunty sound-craft over stoned sonic 'experimentation' that littered the last couple of furry outings shouldn't be underestimated. It should be lauded from the rooftops, that Super Furry Animals are back, and sounding exactly how we wanted them to sound at this point in their career - that being, a hell of a lot younger than they actually are.
'Gateway Song' promises harder stuff, but there isn't a lot of it, not really. Current single 'Run Away' (with its opening line "this song was based on a true story, which would be fine, if it wasn't autobiographical...") is the start of the story of Venus, a girl who 'runs away' to see the world. The album 'Hey Venus!' is how she sees it. It's not a concept that's stuck to rigidly, as the songs do go off on massive tangents that don't really have anything to do with our girl and her quest. No matter - if there's one theme that does run through the album, it's of consistently presenting some of the most luscious, witty songs existent in the SFA canon. 'Run Away' is the first of these, almost Spectorish in feel, but with a wit as weird as that man's wigs - "we may have fought with teeth and nails, I still recall your banking details..." a strong candidate for pop lyric of the year.
'Show Your Hand', which reportedly nearly didn't make the album and is only on there at the request of Rough Trade (who are conclusively delivered the pop album they so dearly craved), is similarly full of 'bah bah bahs' and beautiful string and brass work and boy band key changes, but this first deviation from a tale which has barely begun pales in comparison to what follows. What does follow, indeed? Why, a good few of the best Super Furry Animals tracks ever, sir. Thanks for asking so politely.
'The Gift That Keeps Giving' is one of those. So great is it, such a brilliant approximation of modern plastic soul is this, that it could be on 'Young Americans'. Apart from the title track, it might even be the best track on 'Young Americans'. Here, you start to give rapturous thanks to a God you're not sure you believe in that they've stopped making those lackadaisical fumblings that padded 'Love Kraft' beyond forgiveness. It's not that there aren't things here that don't hark back to old SFA - 'Neo-Consumer' is the kind of glam stomper they aimed for with 'Golden Retriever', but instead of being a tired rock rehash like that one was, here they've perfected it - it's just that they've not sounded this alive, or as full of the joys of their own music, in a good few albums' time. 'Baby Ate My Eightball', which is essentially a three minute exercise in how fun it is to sing the words 'baby, baby, baby, baby ate my eightball' over a killer melody, succeeds in a similar fashion. That's another theme actually, the fun of the feel of words on the tongue - 'Battersea Oddyssey' seems to simply repeat its own title, in a round, because it's fun to hear words that silly slip over your teeth. But because they're obviously having a whale of a time doing it (wait... Battersea... Whales... too soon? Sorry), it doesn't matter that it's completely silly. It becomes the point.
'Into The Night' brings us back to the story of Venus, directly addressing our protagonist by using the album's full title within one of the all time great Super Furry Animals tracks. Every bit of it could be the killer chorus belonging to a lesser song, a guitar solo comes in after the very first of its own choruses, and there are at least three bits which you'll whistle to yourself until your dying day. It epitomises everything they get right on 'Hey Venus!', the only annoying thing being that they do it so effortlessly that it makes you wonder why they couldn't be bothered doing it for the last couple of LPs.
Yet the master/centrepiece of 'Hey Venus!' is undoubtedly 'Suckers', which harks back to classics like 'Demons', 'If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You' or 'Run Christian Run', except this one goes further, goes on longer, gets stronger and stronger with every repetition of that simple yet heartbreaking melody. Thank God (him again - you there, pal?) the only SFA compilations that exist so far are B-Sides and Singles collections, as when they finally compile a 'Very Best Of', this, and a whole host of other tracks from their eighth full length studio album proper, are going to have to take pride of place on it. And how many other bands can you say that about?
Stream five tracks from 'Hey Venus!' HERE.
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