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Super Furry Animals

Pin

11:45 / 22.07.01

So... here’s some questions about the new album:

1. Does it all sound like the really rather wonderful Juxtaposed With U and the just as good Run Christian, Run (that last one is on the album, isn’t it?)?

2. Is it possible to play the DVD version in a normal CD player, or will it only play in a DVD drive, thus making owning a copy of it highly pointless (for me at least) as the only person in my family with a DVD player is about to take it back to London with her.

3. Did that last question make me look dumb?

12:08 / 22.07.01

The album - seeing as it's not out til tomorrow, I'm not sure - but SFA are always a safe bet.

As I'm on holiday [cheers] I will post tomorrow afternoon and let you know what I think.

Don't know about the DVD myself, but I wouldn't take the risk...

Pin

13:31 / 22.07.01

Well, if anyone does get the DVD, I'd be stunningly grateful if you could put it in a normal player and see if it works for me. I'm not gonna be in a possition to buy it 'til Saturday ([cough]Lokk Jack/expressionless, I'll be in Southampton that day[/cough]), so there's no great rush...

14:38 / 23.07.01

Pin, it's a blinder.

You wanted to know -

Does it all sound like the really rather wonderful Juxtaposed With U and the just as good Run Christian, Run (that last one is on the album, isn’t it?)?

Aye, Run Christian Run is and it's great - and for similar sounding songs, Presidential Suite is bloody excellent [sample lyric: Honestly! Do we need to know/ If he really came inside her mouth/How wil this affect me now and later?] , and It's Not The End Of The World? is even better - and I really needed to hear a song like it today.

It doesn't all sound like this, though, like most Super Furries albums it zings about from style to style, often covering about 12 genres during one song.

No Sympathy is brilliant - starts of all country/bluesy and ends with really mad techno static noises. And Rings Around The World is also a blinder - great chorus, nice sing along bit, and they phone people al around the world.
Not sure about Paul McCartney's role chewing vegetables on Receptacle for The Respectable - sounds a bit like someone wanking to me, but then I've always had a dirty mind.

This is only after the first listen - but all in all, I think it could be a grower. Top summer album - I'm off into the garden with a Long Island Iced Tea right now.

Rings Around The World website

and where I went to first, by mistake

plus - Superfurry.com

09:41 / 26.07.01

I'm hoping it is a grower. At the moment, I'm finding it strangely underwhelming.

There's a few really good tracks on it - Sidewalk Surfer Girl, It's Not The End Of The World - but it's just not grabbed my attention yet. As for No Sympathy, "starts of all country/bluesy and ends with really mad techno static noises," is exactly what Mountain People did. Except that song did it better.

It the Furries, though, so I'm not giving up on it. I found that Guerrilla got better and better the more I listened to it, and I'm hoping that this does the same. At the moment it just doesn't seem to be half as ambitious as any of their other albums, except on Juxtapozed With U, the one obvious stand-out track.

Oh, and sorry, JB, but I found Presidential Suite to be lyrically embarrassing. They're capable of so much more than this.

17:53 / 26.07.01

I was more talking about the music on Presidential Suite, rather than the lyrics - but I quite like the lyrics too.

And I was never a fan of Mountain People, and think that No Sympathy does the slow guitar/ fast techno thing better myself.

Still, as the great Sly Stone once said, Different Strokes for Different folks...

Has anyone bought the DVD? I was pissed off you got all those remixes on it as well...

18:13 / 26.07.01

Despite the fact that I'm a bit nonplussed by the album as a whole right now, I'll still probably be picking the DVD up tomorrow.

I really think that the DVD release is something Albarn should have tried with Gorillaz - the singles somehow sound so much better when there's visuals to go with them. I'm wondering if the same could be true for this album.