With their wildly irreverent and inventive approach, Super Furry Animals maintain a hippie mantra of sorts, an anything-goes attitude that finds them thumbing their noses at conventional precepts and forsaking traditional pop parameters while dallying with the unexpected. From the beginning, SFA’s efforts have consistently confounded any attempt to relegate them to a convenient niche. After all, theirs is a sound built on ‘60s sensibilities, where nothing is off limits and exploration infuses ongoing ambition.
The band’s latest endeavor, Dark Days / Light Years finds them reigniting their idiosyncrasies without hesitation, a welcome relief after pulling back the reigns to a certain extent on their last effort, Hey Venus, two years ago. Song titles like “Crazy Naked Girls,” “The Very Best of Neil Diamond” and “White Socks/Flip Flops” provide initial indication, but the more definitive proof lies in the tracks themselves - the unbounded explosiveness of the aforementioned “Crazy Naked Girls,” the unabashed infectiousness of “Lliwiau Llachar,” the sweeping sound of “Helium Hearts” and the utterly effusive “White Socks/Flip Flops.” And while psychedelia infuses the atmospherics throughout, the record rocks convincingly, from the supple surge of “Cardiff in the Sun,” with its percolating pulse and gleaming sha-la-la’s, to the joyfully exuberant “Where Do You Wanna Go,” and its chorus of hey-hey-heys.
Happily too, the band further ups the ante by mixing funk with their frenzy, as reflected in “Moped Eyes,” which combines a Bowie-esque croon with a Prince-like approach. The gleeful “Inaugural Trains” and the rollicking “Inconvenience” also stand out as part of this giddy grab bag. An album that revels in originality, Dark Days / Light Years shows Super Furry Animals aren’t about to be tamed any time soon.
--Lee Zimmerman [June 24, 2009]
