Super Furriest album poll

love kraft is great, I like pretty much every song on it

which I couldn't say about radiator or guerrilla

(it just doesn't have their peaks)

Just burning this for the car:

The Man Don't Give A Fuck 4:50 Super Furry Animals Out Spaced
Do Or Die 1:59 Super Furry Animals Guerrilla
Golden Retriever 2:28 Super Furry Animals Phantom Power
The International Language Of Screaming 2:14 Super Furry Animals Radiator
The Piccolo Snare 6:09 Super Furry Animals Phantom Power
The Very Best Of Neil Diamond 4:14 Super Furry Animals Dark Days/Light Years
Play It Cool 3:15 Super Furry Animals Radiator
Valet Parking 4:35 Super Furry Animals Phantom Power
(Drawing) Rings Around The World 3:30 Super Furry Animals Rings Around The World
Neo Consumer 2:04 Super Furry Animals Hey Venus!
The Teacher 2:31 Super Furry Animals Guerrilla
Juxtapozed With U 3:09 Super Furry Animals Rings Around The World
Inaugural Trams 5:20 Super Furry Animals Dark Days/Light Years
Northern Lites 3:30 Super Furry Animals Guerrilla
The Placid Casual 2:49 Super Furry Animals Radiator
Baby Ate My Eightball 3:35 Super Furry Animals Hey Venus!
Hermann Loves Pauline 4:44 Super Furry Animals Radiator
Smokin' 5:03 Super Furry Animals Out Spaced
Night Vision 4:41 Super Furry Animals Guerrilla
Demons 5:12 Super Furry Animals Radiator

And now I realise that without Ice Hockey Hair, Mwyng, or Fuzzy Logic on my work computer it will forever be incomplete. Must bring and rip them tomorrow.

Hey Mouthy, did you receive the SS links for my additions to your rooms/doors comp a few days ago? I guess there's been some issues with webmail..

Nope, 'fraid not - did you try sickmouthy at gmail dot com?

Nope. I will resend later today, tho.

Wicked, thank you.

Mwng, edging out the first two. The rest all seems good enough to listen to if need be...

I never did manage to hear the hidden track on Guerilla, and have to get around to that someday.

I love Love Kraft; the only track I don't like is "Back on a Roll." "Lazer Beam" was a weak-ass single, but is worth it for the intro rant.

Rings or Guerilla for me, though I had to pick one and chose Rings. Love Kraft has always been very underrated, it was just too similar and not as as good as what they did on Rings a few years before.

I see their reputation in the coming years becoming that of XTC today: viewing them as sort of pop maestros who produced great songs with such versatility and consistency that you would've thought they were under pressure to keep up the quality - only to find out that they weren't under such "biggest band in the UK" pressure but that they just made being classic look effortless.

RATW.

I see their reputation in the coming years becoming that of XTC today

i feel this is an excellent comparison, yet discouraging to me. sfa are better. and i like xtc an awful lot.

I know, ideally they'll be recognized as the greats they are by all who love wonderful pop music, but XTC seems to have had a similar career path.

I should qualify that I meant during the same time period; i.e. since 1996
are you serious? pj harvey? justin broadrick?

Well, since 1996 PJ Harvey has released Louse Point, Is This Desire, Stories, Uh Huh Her, White Chalk, and (next week) A Man A Woman Walked By. That's 6 compared to 10, and while the quality of those albums is very high, I think SFA are as good if not better, and they also never had a fallow period with no new material as long as PJ did between Stories and Uh Huh Her / Uh Huh Her and White Chalk (3-4 year gaps each). SFA did an album a year for the first five years of their career, and one ever two years like clockwork since then.

Justin Broadrick I've never even heard of, so...

Justin Broadrick is dude from Godflesh, Jesu, and others.
Kind of hard to compare as he's an entirely different can of soup

My ranking:

Radiator
Phantom Power
Rings Around The World
Love Kraft
Fuzzy Logic
Guerrilla
Hey Venus
Mwng
Out Spaced

it would go something like this (been a fan since the beginning):

1. Radiator
2. Guerrilla
3. Rings Around The World
4. Mwng
5. Phantom Power
6. Fuzzy Logic

7. Love Kraft
8. Hey Venus!

leaving out Out Spaced because i own all those singles and have never heard that compilation. if i made a b-sides compilation it would probably rank number one.

Radiator is the best and probably always will be. Phantom Power second and Rings Around the World third (since I prefer the pastoral PP stuff to the string-drenched RATW stuff like "Presedential Suite". The new one will go in second or third I think. Guerrilla is obviously amazing in places but to me doesn't carry off stylistically diverse but coherant as well as the above.

I'd go:

Rings Around the World
Mwng
Radiator
Guerilla
Love Kraft
Phantom Power
Hey Venus!
Out Spaced
Fuzzy Logic

Not sure where to place the new one yet.

Artists going at a similar pace to the Furries:

Deerhoof (ten albums since '97)
Drive-by Truckers (seven albums since '98, including a double album)
Centro-Matic/South San Gabriel (eleven albums, including a double, since '96)
Of Montreal (ten 'proper' albums and a whole bunch of other crap since '97)

also, Animal Collective - seven LPs since '02 or so.

Anyway, the worst SFA has ever done stil >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that Gruff Rhys solo album. Dunno what was wrong with him then, but the album lacks everything that is great about SFA, even though you can hear it is the same guy.

I remember when Love Kraft came out thinking it was a bit generic, but later listens suggest it has a real depth to it. I still voted for Radiator, though.

How many SFA albums do you need? At this stage I have five, and don't really feel like I need any more, unless I get Mwng sometime.

Having gorged myself on all the albums and pretty much all the b-sides for the last fortnight, I feel like I still need more.

yah if you like what you've heard, you should hear 'em all (with perhaps the controversial exceptions of fuzzy logic and hey venus)

ESPECIALLY "Mwng", that album rules so so hard

Well it certainly wins for my favorite all Welsh language album.

Greatest working band in the world as far as I'm concerned. Their bad tracks are rarely bad. I think people tend to get a bit hyperbolic about how "overrated" some of their albums are--Rings in particular. I love everything they've done. And both of Gruff's solo albums are fantastic. What's wrong with them?

And Love Kraft is an album that gets better with age. Very misunderstood IMO. I think part of the pleasure in listening to the band is seeing them develop through their career. How did they go from "God! Show me Magic" to "Walk You Home" to "White Socks/Flip Fops"

what is your order for their albums teflon monkey?

I'm still tussling over LK vs PP for my 5th-favourite

I have to say i'm starting to look forward to my (chronological) reassesment of Love Kraft. And the last one. Picking a favourite won't get any easier mind. Disappointed in the growing Fuzzy Logic lack of love on here though.

"Disappointed in the growing Fuzzy Logic lack of love on here though."

Me too. There are perhaps one or two slightly weaker tracks in the second half of the album, but it's pure genius, especially the first 7 songs = nearly all of them 10/10.

I KNOW YOU CARE ABOUT MY ORDERING SYSTEM SO
Guerrilla
Radiator
Phantom Power
Fuzzy Logic
Dark Days/Light Years (and rising, might be one of my fave raves so far)
Mwng
Out Spaced
Rings Around The World
Love Kraft
Hey Venus

Guerrilla
Mwng
Fuzzy Logic
Rings Around the World
Outspace
Love Kraft
Hey Venus
Radiator

I really like the new one a lot. And I think that I enjoy Radiator the least of their albums. The production gets tiring on my ears.

Outspaced
Love Kraft
Phantom Power

Just obtained DD/LY today: Holy Shit, this is GOOD.

Yes to ^^^^ this! I haven't heard SFA's whole discography yet, but if there are a lot of SFA albums better than DD/LY front-to-back then this group is beyond amazing. The Very Best of Neil Diamond and Trams are on nonstop repeat for me these days.

Really, really trying to hold out for the U.S. physical release (I'm sort of OCD about buying physical copies of favorite bands when I already have the rest of their discography), but I just saw it isn't due until the end of May now!

Really, really wish "Mt." didn't exist...still, a very good record, despite the 2nd track completely destroying all the gloriously-attained momentum of "Crazy Naked Girls". The way that song takes 5 minutes of weirdly-lumbering stop-start chanting and guitar heroics to find its pulsating groove is just magnificent. But before we can get too much of a good thing...we plunge straight into the clunker. Ugh.

Fortunately, they spend the rest of the album making up for it. Only really "Cardiff In The Sun" numbers amongst their VERY best songs, but there's remarkable consistency at play here.

I like Mt. better than Crazy Naked Girls. Better groove, a narcotic-vibe, and less abrasive. But this part -- "there's remarkable consistency at play here" -- I'll happily cosign.

guess i'm a sucker for welsh. "lliwiau llachar" is my favorite on the new one, and mwng is still my favorite album of theirs. can't say why for sure except maybe cuz gruff's vocals sound even more to me like robert wyatt's when he's not singing in english, and i'm a sucker for robert wyatt too

everything since 2001 or thereabouts is largely forgettable. RONG.

You know what, I've never listened to a SFA album in my life before, which is strange because I've been aware of them from the start and equally aware that they epitomise everything I like about music. Is it too late to start?

― the next grozart Not at all. Jump on in, the water's weird.

the worst SFA has ever done stil >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that Gruff Rhys solo album. Dunno what was wrong with him then, but the album lacks everything that is great about SFA, even though you can hear it is the same guy.

Geir, have you heard the first (all-Welsh) Gruff Rhys album (Yr Atal Genhedlaeth)? Because it's a fucking pop monster. It's the opposite of the big, lush SFA sound but to my ears there's hardly a duff moment on it. Helps that if any of the lyrics suck, I have no way of knowing. No habla Cwmraeg. Candylion, I'll agree, was a bit limp, "Skylon" excepted.

Louis, your knee-jerk hatred of pop upsets me. Mt is great!

Still can't decide on what to vote in the poll. Listened to LoveKraft again the other day and was surprised how much I enjoyed it - if it wasn't for Psyclone and Back on a Roll I'd really love it. Haven't tried Hey Venus again yet.

After getting DD/LY on cd I was surprised at how long it is! It really doesn't feel like an hour, I guess because the beginning and end are kind of drawn-out a bit, and there's 4 relatively long songs, and Where Do You Want To Go?/Lliwiau Llachar takes longer than you think. The only disappointing thing on this album is the way Helium Hearts fades out, like they've created this beautiful song and don't quite know what to do with it.

I hope these guys never break up. each new album = comfort music.

New album is great, and if any of you are interested in their acid techno side I would recommend Acid Casuals, the side project of Cian from the band.

wtf "kneejerk hatred of pop", if I had that then would I like that slew of tracks towards the end? :-P

You hate the whole of Hello venus! though!

They're older now...

and by the looks of it, not releasing a new record either.