Radiator - Super Furry Animals

Furryvision

A quiet, melodic start to the album (very different to Fuzzy Logic's roaring first track God! Show me magic), this song, with an eerie, ringing synth and mysterious strings sets the tone for much of the album - melancholy and beautiful.

The Placid Casual

A combination of a chorus with a tune to die for, booming drums, and a jerky verse, this song sets the tone for the other half of the album - rocking and very, well, for want of non-seventies term, very funky. This song also introduces two lyrical themes that crop up again in later songs - that of revolutionaries, with a reference to Valentine Strasser, described by the sleeve-notes as 'The world's youngest head of state', and of calm acceptance, 'They weren't Placid Casual, so they lost control'.

The International Language of Screaming

Another fun, fast song, this time with added screaming (which is always a good thing). Starts in a very country vein, and goes on to add a great big chorus, before finishing with lots of screaming. This is a really great song about frustration, but rather than being frustrating in itself, as such songs often are, it instead carries a message of fighting whatever gets you down, all wrapped up with the aformentioned great tune. A great song to listen too if you're feeling a bit pissed off.

Demons

A slower, mellower song, starting with just Gruff singing with a tiny bit of acoustic guitar. The backing builds up, until we get to the chorus, which features somewhat choral backing vocals and very 'chunky' guitar. A melancholy song, for sure, the flipside of The International Language of Screeming - a song for when frustration gets you down so much that you can't see a way out.

Short Painkiller

As the title says, this is a short tune (under a minute). Rising synthesised, string-like sounds rise into the stratosphere, leading into the quiet start of the next song.

She's Got Spies

This song starts of quietly, with Gruff singing in his best depressed voice and slightly detuned acoustic guitar. Then the chorus kicks in, managing that rare feat of combining raging guitars with an air of melancholy that is almost palbable. The song gets better and better, with soaring backing vocals, edgy 'ba-ba-ba-bas' over the chorus and a gorgeous middle-eigth that adds orchestral gubbins and a very dreamy feel.

Play It Cool

This song certainly play's it very cool indeed (ho-ho). This song is the sort of song that SFA do so well - guitars jamming in the background, electric organs playing along, all manner of wierd noises here and there and top quality lyrics - 'I feel so seduced, tell me to reproduce' and 'Whatever you want to do, wash it now and go later' come to mind. Oh, and quality existentialism, of course ('I'm free to do anything I'm told'). Great stuff, absolute corking fun.

Hermann Loves Pauline

From the moment the fly buzz sound began to make its way about the stereo, I knew this song was going to be something special, and it certainly is - the standout song on a brlliant album. A song about Einstein's parents, taking in Che Guevara and Marie Curie along the way, this song has it all - pummeling guitars, wierd noodling noises, and lyrics that seem to me to be at the heart of the whole album, touching on the ideas of revolution (Che Guevara), suffocation (Ventolin - a drug for asthma sufferers - and radiation poisoning, described as 'slow, invisible suffocation'), brainwashing ('We have ways of making you think' repeated over and over again) and more existentialism ('Why do you do what they tell you'). This song is hard to describe, so I'm going to stop - watch this space for a sample.

Chupacabras

A complete change from Hermann Loves Pauline, this song is a blasting tune about the infamous Puerto Rican Goat Sucker (a bat, much beloved by the Fortean Times). Shouting, pounding drums, great riffs, more shouting, a nonsense chorus - probably the most similar song to Fuzzy Logic, and none the worse for it.

Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir

This song is in Welsh (SFA are bilingual and proud of it), so unfortunately I can't make any comments on the lyrics. The music is pretty fine, but to my mind this track is the weakest on the album - it doesn't rock as much as the rocking songs, and it doesn't have the melancholy beauty of the melancholically beautiful songs. Not bad, but not great either.

Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D

A lovely song, sad yet uplifting. Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D starts quietly, with a lovely (and slightly disconcerting) syncopated rythmn and electric organ. Then the chorus arrives, and the song goes into orbit, with a sort of electronic choir swooping up and down, and the sort of guitar Oasis would have if they were good. A song about overcoming difficulties, and trying as hard as you can. Comparable to climbing Snowdon on a cloudy day, getting to the top and finding you can see for miles.

Down a Different River

Arguably an anditote to Fuzzy Logic's Hanging with Howard Marks, this song is a beautiful epic, which does pretty much everything right. Electric noises, acoustic guitars, vocal harmonies - absolutely brilliant.

Download

A truly tragic song, with haunting piano and two part vocal harmony, reciting todays woes. Beautiful, and certainly beats Radiohead's miserablist whinings (although I must admit that OK Computer! is quite good miserablist whining).

Mountain People

Stop-start quitar, keening background sounds and brilliantly spiky lyrics about, I assume, Wales ('So far away from those tree-lined streets, look so neat', 'Hand me down culture, waiting for the vulture', 'One last chance at ignorance'), the song starts off interesting, and begins to grow on you, and then the bell and choir kick in, and the rest of the song is simply astounding, becoming less and less structured until it finally manages to turn itself into banging techno. A brilliant way for the album to end, a brilliant song, and, perhaps, a hint of where the Super Furry Animals' future lies.

Well, that's what the album is made up of, and it all gells together very well, trust me. A variety of songs, all finding different ways to express and deal with anger and frustration, with some phat toons (I'm assured by my advisor, Sir Harry Secombe - who is 'down wit da' kidz', or so he says - that that is the corect term) and some moments that really take the breath away. If you haven't bought it already, you really ought to, as it is simply the best album so far this year. Whether it remains the album of the year depends on Bjork and Portishead, as far as I can see. I'll see you with my ramblings on those two albums as and when...

What's that you say? Dancing about architecture? Fair enough.

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