FEATURE:
Second Spin
Super Furry Animals – Hey Venus!
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WHEN it comes to bands…
who have had this sort of near-faultless run through their careers, they do not come a lot better than the Super Furry Animals! The Welsh band’s ninth and final album, Dark Days/Light Years, was released in 2009. Looking at the reviews for all of their albums makes for impressive reading! Almost all of them have won huge acclaim. There are a couple that I feel did not scoop the amount of praise warranted. One such album is their penultimate, Hey Venus! Released in 2007, this is an album that did get acclaim, though there were a few reviews not quite as positive as they could have been. I guess that is always going to happen. The reason I am highlighting Hey Venus! Is that it is one of the Super Furry Animals’ best albums. You do not hear the songs from it played on the radio as much as you do from, say, the tracks on Fuzzy Logic (their 1996 debut) or Radiator (the 1997 follow-up). Hey Venus! Contains classic slices like Run-Away and Show Your Hand. It is an album that I would recommend everyone check out today. It is remarkable that any band could release nine albums that have almost received nothing but positivity and love! I am trying to think how many others can claim that! In any case, Hey Venus! is one of the nine Super Furry Animals albums that should have got even more praise.
It is underrated I feel. The tracks on the album warrant wider appreciation today. This is what AllMusic said in their review:
“Sometime after Radiator, Super Furry Animals began exploring a wide sonic world, eventually drifting far out into orbit with albums like Rings Around the World and Phantom Power, albums so ambitious and so packed with celeb cameos that they brought the band attention from the respectable press. As accomplished as those albums were, they found SFA losing their divine gift of suggesting that anything could happen, the very thing that made their first four albums so divine. While they didn't get as overstuffed and lethargic as Mercury Rev or Flaming Lips did when they turned all serious -- an impish sense of humor always pulsated underneath their music -- Super Furry Animals did turn a bit ponderous, which made the relative levity of Love Kraft welcome even if the album was uneven, but that warm, hazy record in no way suggested the full-fledged return to pop power that is 2007's Hey Venus! By far the tightest record SFA has released since Radiator -- boasting no song over five minutes and four clocking in under three -- this is a concise, song-oriented record, which is somewhat ironic since it began its life as something as a concept album.
The narrative was ditched during the recording as the group culled together 11 songs that hold together as an intensely colorful, insanely catchy pop album. Such a claim may suggest that this is the return of the frenzied rush of Fuzzy Logic, which isn't exactly true, because after a flurry of hooks at the outset -- "Run-Away," "Show Your Hand," and even the cleverly tossed-off opener, "The Gateway Song," all hold their own with "God! Show Me Magic" and "Herman Loves Pauline" -- the record settles into softer territory, trading on the lush Beach Boys, Bacharach, and ELO of their turn-of-the-century records. But if those albums were gauzy, as much about the texture as about the tune, here the focus is solely on the song, with each of the 11 tracks standing on its own yet working together to create an addictive 37-minute pop album. And just because this is disciplined in a way that Super Furry Animals haven't been in years doesn't mean they've ceased to progress -- they've never had songs as lazily soulful as the closing "Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon" or "The Gift That Keeps Giving" with its electric sitars, and "Baby Ate My Eightball" threads their electronic fascinations into a lean rocker, the kinds of subtle innovations that prove that the Furries can still surprise as they enter their second decade. That reclaimed sense of unpredictability is as easy to embrace as the simple pop pleasures of Hey Venus! as a whole”.
With their lead, Gruff Rhys, providing some of his best vocals to date, Hey Venus! is a treasure trove. It is also a good introduction to anyone new to the Welsh wonders. Although there is oddity and experimentation, there is nothing on Hey Venus! that would put people off. I will finish off with the BBC’s take on the 2007 album:
“And the award for most innovative band of our time goes to.... the Super Furry Animals. OK there's no such thing but if there was, the Furries would be a good outside bet to snatch this one away from the likes of Radiohead and The Flaming Lips. You see the wacky Welsh wizards are currently on album number eight and once again they have served up a record that both baffles and inspires.
Produced by David Newfield (Broken Social Scene), Hey Venus! is part one of a two-chapter epic. Like 2003's Phantom Power, the latest instalment in Furrymania - which follows the adventures of a young woman who flees her small town for the big metropolis - fires out pop gems at every turn. Only this time they're both shorter and sweeter.
Kicking off with the band's ‘shortest song ever’ at just 43 seconds, the stomping "Gateway Song" sounds like Chas And Dave covering Status Quo. Then comes five minutes of pure pop bliss in the form of the heartfelt "Run-Away" and jangling lead-off single 'Show Your Hand'. It's a shrewd trick and one that works brilliantly elsewhere especially on stand-out track "Into The Night", a huge pop belter, served up with calypso beats, fuzzy guitars and an Indian twist.
But a Super Furries album wouldn't be complete without their usual dollop of wackiness. "Baby Ate My Eightball" is as bonkers as its title suggests as is piano driven closer "Let The Wolves Howl At The Moon". But the award for most mental track on the album unashamedly goes to psychedelic brass beast 'Battersey Odyssey'. Here guitarist Huw Bunford sounds like his head's been shoved underwater as he warbles: "Battersey Odyssey/Battersey Odyssey" while the rest of the band pull out every instrument under the sea.
You can always rely on the Furries to deliver a brilliant album and Hey Venus! is right up there with some of their best material (Radiator, Guerrilla, Phantom Power). Let's hope part two is just as bonkers”.
A magnificent album from a band who called it quits when they were still on a high and producing phenomenal work, Hey Venus! is a masterful and stunning album. Go and investigate the fine work of Super Furry Animals. Despite most critics latching onto and loving Hey Venus!, it is an album that deserves even…
MORE love than it got.