PHANTOM POWER

Phantom Power (also an album title by Rick Wakeman) is another classic album from Super Furry Animals. This album manages to show off their continuing evolution in sound. This album has some incredible tunes and proves this band to be unstopable. This album has an even stronger use of symphonic elements and drives away from the early psyhadelic roots. This is an album i would highly recommend to Moody Blues fans as the combination of art rock, prog and symphonic/orchestral work here is at its best.

This album kicks off with a classic and defining SFA tune, "Hello Sunshine". This is a powerful acoustic tune driven by its heavy use of Moody Blues style composition. This track became a slightly comical classic as it is a really beautiful and honest acoustic piece, yet in true SFA style has purposely half assed lyrics about being a minger and being lazy. This is a lovely sing along and addictive track. An upbeat and lively moment on this album is follow up track, "Libery Belle", which has some great, yet subtle, guitar and piano work. "Golden Retriever" is the only real return to psychadelia. This is a really good short rocker, nothing really proggy but a very enjoyable tune.

The orchestral work is pushed forward on this album and is an even greater force than on the previous album. This is truely shown off on tracks like "Sex, War and Robots", and the very Moody Blues like, "Father, Father" interludes. The work on this album concentrates less on the cliche SFA styles and goes out for some bold and confident symphonic style acoustic compositions.

"Out of Control" is a very special track and one of my faves of their whole career. This is a really gritty rocker with some heavy distortion and fantastic riffing that seems a bit out there even for a band like this. SFA have always been unpredicatable and up for anything. "Cityscape Skybaby" and "Venus & Serena" are some amazing slow building tracks that are beautiful, vivid and powerful and are truely standout points of the album.

The closing track is a real odd one out yet amazing SFA track and a live favourite. This is a very confusing, unpredictable long tune that has some heavy experimental work that hasn't been this strong since their 1999 album, "Guerilla". A great album closer although it doesn't really relate to anything else on the album. It's a great track that even made it onto their "Songbook" collection album.

"Phantom Power" is a remarkably good album. SFA continue to evolve and this is where they pushed their art rock act to a trademark style. This album is original and provides some great acoustic works and a superb use of orchestral elements. Highly recommended, but perhaps not as a starting point.