Super Furry Animals Rings Around the World
(Epic) ****
£13.99
In the early 1970s, rock music became obsessed with gimmicks. Albums were released in quadrophonic and holophonic sound. Rock operas were written, preposterous costumes sported on stage, equally preposterous films commissioned from the dread hand of director Ken Russell. Pink Floyd constructed a special sound system, controlled by a joystick and portentously called the Azymuth Coordinator. Rick Wakeman performed live in a skating rink, accompanied by a troupe of ice dancers dressed as Arthurian knights. At a time when musical inspiration was at an all-time low, one resort was to crank up the special effects, invent extravagant new recording techniques, and hope your audience was too stoned to notice that the album itself was appalling.
Given rock music's current unhealthy pallor, the news that Super Furry Animals have released their fifth album both as a CD and as an interactive DVD, featuring 13 specially made films and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, should be enough to set alarm bells ringing. After an hour of actually watching the DVD, the alarm bells are at mind-scrambling volume. The Welsh quartet apparently spent £65,000 on the DVD alone. Next to nothing in the world of rock-video commissioning, but still too much for 60 minutes of pot-headed cliches: spacey computer graphics, Indian travelogues, nuclear explosions and some profoundly unerotic "erotic" animation based on the Kama Sutra.
It all smacks of tie-dyed wall-hangings and complicated dope-smoking equipment. It also highlights the most unappealing aspects of a band who have spent the past six years walking precariously between the genuine musical invention of albums such as 1999's Guerilla and a penchant for druggy undergraduate hi-jinks. They were, after all, largely responsible for the cultural rehabilitation of noisome drug smuggler Howard Marks: his image featured on the cover and in the lyrics of their 1996 debut Fuzzy Logic.
So far, so redolent of the era of loon pants and personal ads in the NME in which hairy guy sought gentle chick. But ignore the eye candy and listen to the album (in straightforward stereo), and a different story emerges. Musically, Rings Around the World has less to do with prog-rock indulgence than with the glorious experimentation of the mid-1960s Beach Boys, a fact underlined by Paul McCartney's cheerily peculiar guest appearance. The rhythm track of Receptacle for the Respectable is built on the sound of the former Beatle munching celery, a duty he first performed on the Beach Boys' psychedelic epic Smile. The spectre of Brian Wilson also hangs over the song's episodic structure, which deftly switches from vibrant harmony pop to Bacharach-influenced swoon to deranged glam stomp in a charmingly irreverent homage.
Much current British music is bogged down in the past, but Rings Around the World is an album that could only have been made in 2001. Although they emerged at the height of Britpop on Oasis's label Creation, Super Furry Animals always seemed slightly out of step with their retro-minded peers thanks to their love of techno. They remain one of the few indie bands who can smoothly integrate dance influences into their sound. Here, the acoustic No Sympathy explodes into pounding, distorted electronics that mirror the song's bitter lyrics. Single Juxtapozed With U tops a string-laden soul ballad with the sort of treated robot vocal Daft Punk are fond of, while Miniature marks the album's mid-point with 40 lovely seconds of ambient tones.
The lyrics eschew the band's tendency for meaningless whimsy in favour of wry humour. The thought of yet another rock band worthily expounding on environmental issues is enough to send most right-thinking adults scrambling for a can of CFC-laden hairspray, but Rings Around the World's title track tackles the subject with a sharp wit. Presidential Suite curiously applies the same approach to Bill Clinton's scandal-laden term of office: "Honestly," sighs vocalist Gruff Rhys wearily, "do we all need to know if he came inside her mouth?"
Much attention has been lavished on Rings Around the World's extras - which also include concerts in surround sound and a series of themed "Furrymania" events in London, Manchester and Glasgow. In the early 1970s, this sort of thing was de rigueur, because it diverted attention from the knuckle-gnawing tedium of the music. Here, the opposite is true - the last thing you need is to be distracted. Strip away the gimmickry and Rings Around the World is a remarkable, forward-thinking British rock album, packed with fresh ideas, devoid of pretension. And that is a rare and unusual event in itself.
