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Having
played the festival circuit all summer, Gruff Rhys and the guys
are ready to take to the road on their own with new album Phantom
Power.
Throughout
their albums, SFA have been influenced by contemporary issues and
themes such as global warming and communication overload. Their
latest offering is no different.
With
recent worldly events still fresh in their minds, songs of war and
loss of life feature strongly; "We seem to be living in such
a heavy time. We're just absorbing all the words thrown at us from
the TV and regurgitating them back", says Gruff.
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| Gruff
Rhys |
That's
not to say that the Super Furries have gone all depressive on us.
As ever they manage to bring in their own brand of upbeat rhythms
and satirical humour to counter-act the seriousness behind the lyrics
which is one of the things that makes their music so toe-tappingly
great.
A brilliant
example is their latest single Golden Retriever. It's bluesy, bouncy
beat makes it an immediate crowd pleaser and the lyrics (written
around the time that Gruff passed his driving test - hence all the
driving references) showcase Gruff's talent for original songwriting.
However,
don't expect the same old formula from the Welshmen. They've also
toned down the techno in many new tracks to produce a more intimate,
acoustic sound.
Long
considered to be at the cutting edge of music technology, SFA have
again released their album on both CD and DVD simultaneously to
emulate their must-see live gigs. They were the first band ever
to do this with their previous album Rings Around The World.
This
time, however, they want you to concentrate on the sounds rather
than the images. Says Gruff, "Too much emphasis was given on
'there's a video for every song', whereas the reason we made it
was because of our surround sound gigs - we wanted to capture that
on record."
Hopefully,
this means that the visual/sound spectacular that wowed audiences
on the Rings Around The World tour will be repeated, even bettered
on this tour.
There's
only one way to find out...
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