super furry animals: rings around the world

BY TONY LAZENKA

A band often mentioned in the same breath is Wales' Super Furry Animals, who also suffer vocal fits; they may be cheerier than Thom's, but they nevertheless convey a similar passion.

The strength of Rings Around the World, the band's fifth LP, is that they are able to incorporate lead singer Gruff Rhys' gleefully eccentric vocals (sample interval jump: major third down, major third up; sample lyric: "Sooner or later we will melt together/With all those meteoric stones/And all those sheep they never cloned") into an extremely palpable pop setting. This best works on the songs "It's Not the End of the World," which borrows from '70s R&B and, in a quick guitar line, the Beach Boys, and "Run! Christian, Run!," a mournful country epic with synths.

The only problem is when the band's embellishments resemble their musical influences too much—as in the title track, which meshes, by the band's own admission, a chorus stolen from ABBA with a bassline from space rockers Hawkwind—and the songs are unable to develop fully.

The result is still incredibly tuneful, but the effect fails to fashion a single musical identity for the band in the way that anything, say, by Radiohead does.

This isn't much of a complaint, though. The stronger tracks on Rings Around the World suggest that the group is about to become the best psychedelic/soul/ambient band in recent memory, rather than a Pink Floyd knock-off like Radiohead. (Epic)

Back to A&E...