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23 November 2008
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Radiator

Radiator

Creation Records: 25 August 1997

Possibly the Super Furries' best album - their pure pop masterpiece.

The Furries' second album was released on the same day as Stereophonics' debut Word Gets Around, in August 1997. And yet, while Radiator should have seen SFA rightfully take their throne as pop wunderkinds, it was Stereophonics who swiftly went on to become the biggest band in Wales.

RadiatorRadiator found Super Furry Animals at their most pop-happy. A perfect soundtrack to the long hot summer of 1997, it yielded four top 40 singles: Hermann Loves Pauline, The International Language Of Screaming, Play It Cool and Demons.

However, the rest was hardly filler. She's Got Spies was a wonderful sun-kissed Beach Boys jamboree; Chupacabras saw the band at their most playful; and The Placid Casual later gave name to the band's record label.

The album also saw Gruff Rhys coming into his own as a lyricist. Taster single Hermann Loves Pauline saw use of the fantastic couplet: "Hermann Loves Pauline and Pauline Loves Hermann. They made love and gave birth to a little German". Naturally, the song was about motorway service stations and Albert Einstein.

Additionally, in Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir, they included their first Welsh language song on an SFA album. And, in the apocalyptic closing Mountain People, the band managed to combine isolation and self-doubt with verve and wit, in what could well be their finest moment.

Words: Joe Goodden
Tracklisting

  • Furryvision
  • The Placid Casual
  • The International Language Of Screaming
  • Demons
  • Short Painkiller
  • She's Got Spies
  • Play It Cool
  • Hermann Loves Pauline
  • Chupacabras
  • Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir
  • Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D
  • Down A Different River
  • Download
  • Mountain People
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Comments

Mark- Birmingham UK
One of the best albums I have ever bought!!!! I love ever song on this, they seem so original and out there but at the same time they comfort my soul!!! They really hit the nail on the head with this one!

You, Here
Guerilla is definitely better, but this one's good of course. A lot of it plays like conventional pop-punk, which is highly unappealing compared to Guerilla's psychotic electronica.

Calum From Chipping Norton (Oxfordshire)
One of the first albums I bought, as a fluke, it turned out to be the best album I've ever bought and has lasted me for over 6 years and 100's of albums! Every one with a large record collection or genral understanding in good music that's original really should own this album!

Stoneshifter, Black Country UK
A romantic dreamland that sooths my ectic mind. I need that album like our planet needs the sun. SFA ok.

TAL from California
SFA's finest hour. They have not come close to equalling Radiator.

Si Hart, Bracknell
This is a joyous and wonderful album! I've heard it a hundred times and still love it immensly! Full of classic SFA songs that make you smile as soon as you hear them, and my all time favourite Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D. a magical and inspiring song!

Nygell Craig, Dundalk
I own 2,000 albums and this is the best of them all

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