Super Furry Animals
Phantom Power

THE REVIEW

It's time, after praising them so much, to give them a bit of a thrashing: yes, even the Super Furry Animals have had a lapse in style in their career.

After the brilliant "Rings Around The World," the Furries decided to continue in their new musical direction, more quirky and "heavy."

Here's the problem, though: they have overdone the experimentation and have produced an album that I find boring and lacking in ideas: "Phantom Power."

The singles are decent: "Hello Sunshine" is a rather slow and sad country-folk, "Golden Retriever," a somewhat banal indie-rock worthy of the Arctic Monkeys and "Slow Life," a novelty: techno rhythms mix with orchestra and guitar riffs. However, the chord progression is identical to that of Blur's Beetlebum... so this also disappoints me a bit...

What else to say? Only "Out Of Control," a hard-rock in the style of Oasis, "The Undefeated," a samba-like track, a worthy sequel to "Northern Lites," "Bleed Forever," electronic pop with horns and vocoderized voice, and "Liberty Belle," a classic Furries song, are worth saving...

But the rest? "The Piccolo Snare" is melancholic but too long and repetitive: almost seven minutes! The two "Father Father" tracks seem rather superfluous,...

Two excellent tracks emerged during these sessions: "Aluminium Illuminati" and "Never More"; however, they were used as b-sides for the singles from the album "Hey Venus"!

But not even the b-sides from the singles of this album have any punch: on the contrary, they are extremely soporific! The cover art is also dreadful... I don't like it at all... consistent with the content of the album...

Well... as a good student of a classical high school, I say, "De Gustibus Non Disputandum Est"... feel free to criticize me, but I don't particularly like this album and I won't easily change my mind. Thankfully, gradually, with the subsequent albums, they recovered, up to the last one, a true masterpiece, otherwise, I would have given up on them...

Key Tracks: "The Undefeated," "Slow Life," "Out Of Control."