RADIATOR

"Radiator" is one of the best albums I have ever heard. Super Furry Animals expanded their sound a lot in just one year since their debut. This album is full of much thicker, lengthy tunes with more slow compositions. "Radiator" really brings out their first real proggy feel and is quite an epic album which has so much to offer.

The album builds up with a slow, gloomy piano intro. That leads into quite a psychadelic blasting, "The Placid Casual". This track has brilliant basslines, vocal effects and the keyboards and guitar really build up a spacey, freaky sound. This already displays much more expansive songwriting than the debut. The album is still able to display some more poppier, rockin' moments with tracks like "The International Language of Screaming" and "Chupacabras", which display some acid pop tones.

"Demons" is a slow, acoustic ballad like track that tags along after "...Screaming" perfectly. This track definetly shows off some of their amazing use of instruments. "Radiator" is the first album to introduce their instrumental interludes which pop up on just about every album after this one. "Short Painkiller" is a trippy brief sonic whizzing sounds that add to the spacey feel of the album.

"She's Got Spies" stands out as being a battle between the bands slow and gloomy moments, that flows into some psychadelic fuzzy guitar work and wrestles back and forth between these two sides of their songwriting. "Play it Cool" and "Hermann Loves Pauline" are the centrepieces of the album and both singles. This shows off both art rock appeal and pop appeal.

Another new thing introduced into this album that will pop up on most of their other albums (especially 2000's "Mwng") is Welsh only tracks. Many of the bands b-sides and album tracks are written entirely in Welsh in order to show off their home language and to confuse the listeners. "Torra Fy Ngwallt Ny Hir" is a loveable blast of uncertainty. "Bass Tuned to DEAD" quite literally uses a bass tuned to DEAD and is a good track that helps build up to the albums 3 amazing closing tracks.

"Down a Different River" shows off some of the bands best songwriting skills. They go all out here to create growing sounds and is quite an epic tune compared to the rest of the album. This track goes from slow quiet acoustic and effects to full blown vocal and musicianship work. "Download" is a personal favourite because the lyrics are touching, honest and clever (probably their least humourous track). The simplicity of this track astounds me as it works so well yet it is basically just piano and vocals. Gruff and the backing vocals really shine here to make quite an emotional track. This short and simple song helps lead into the amazing album closer. There is some great experimental sounds that remind me of "One of These Days" by Pink Floyd towards the close of the track, there is also a kind of heart beat style bass which makes "Download" one of the standout tracks on the album.

"Mountain People" is a great album closer. Gruff Rhys describes it as a country song played at 800BPM. This track also introduces one of the bands key ingredients which is ending a track with an epic array of techno/rave style sounds! However silly it sounds, it works really well and is revisited on more albums to come.

"Radiator" is a masterpiece in my eyes. It is amazing to see how much one bands songwriting can evolve in just one year. This is quite a definitive record for the band as it set's the blueprints for their whole career, offering so many different sounds and structures that SFA are able to keep expanding upon in the future. "Radiator" does well at introducing new things such as interludes, welsh tracks, techno experimenting and slower more epic compositions. This shows that "Radiator" has dared to expand the sound so much and it has payed off as many fans accepted their growth in songwriting and it helped the band discover even more of the sound they wanted to make than their debut had to offer. This album is highly recommended.

This second album from "Supper Furry Animals" sounds coming from another age (the late seventies) just like their debut one. Little improvement as far as I'm concerned.

Same post new wave music which could have been innovative if released twenty years before. It reminds me at times of the hilarious Dutch band "Gruppo Sportivo" but with much less humour and creativity.

Since I have been involved quite a lot into this musical genre in my late teens, I don't dislike this album, just that I can't really find a good reason to have this band featured on PA. This work consists of quite short tracks (six clocking under or just above the two minutes limit), well written I must say. but lacking of a definite good feel.

Nice pop melodies, crafted production but the whole sounds somewhat old fashioned. Same feel I got while reviewing "The Church" albums. This is only an average work which shouldn't be enjoyed by a lot of progheads (but very few of you seem to be interested in this band).

Two stars.

Riding high off the momentum laid down on their debut "Fuzzy Logic," the Cardiff spawned SUPER FURRY ANIMALS was taking the 90s alternative scene by storm with its innovative mix of progressive Britpop, neo-psychedelia and alternative indie rock. In fact they were considered the hottest act from Wales since Budgie decorated the 70s hard rock scene with heavy doses of proto-metal and launched the UK's early new wave of British heavy metal scene (we'll ignore the Manic Street Preachers for this review!). Having tamed its outlandish electronic experiments into digestible chunks, the band led by lead singer Gruff Rhys focused more on catchy Britpop hooks embellished with all those scrumptious 90s sounds including grunge guitar, pop punk and alternative with a dash of psychedelic sprinklings on top.

The band didn't waste any time taking their sound to new heights with their sophomore full-length RADIATOR which emerged in the summer of 1997 to great fanfare although the band was a little too experimental and weird for the Britpop crowds and a little too poppy hooky for the casual alt rockers who were totally craving the unabashed guitar fuzz. But somehow SUPER FURRY ANIMALS captured a new niche of their own making, one that was in that eerie in between zone where all styles of 90s music seemingly met in the dark but didn't tell the family. The results were not only interesting but fascinating and for lovers of art rock and progressive pop, RADIATOR was a real treat indeed.

Alternating mind-blowing electronic experiments with fully fueled Britpop accessibility, SUPER FURRY ANIMALS reminded of many artists but sounded like no other. While comparisons to The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, The Beach Boys and even Blur have been made, the band funneled all those diverse ingredients into a cauldron of its own making and boiled them down into a cohesive mishmash of masterful art pop bar none. RADIATOR begins with the eerie electronic intro of "Furryvision" which makes you think you might have popped in a Tangerine Dream album but the Britpop flavors with raucous guitar grooves quickly take you into the world of more contemporary alternative rock (a la Blur) of the 90s and then the band delivers a series of diverse tracks that feature blistering rock workouts accompanied by stellar space rock and psychedelic effects.

Certain tracks remind me of Spacehog, such as the intelligently designed "Demons" (one of the many top 40 hits and a personal fave!) which featured grungy guitar hooks, references to David Bowie glam rock and even adopts those famous Canterbury Scene keyboard sounds made popular by Soft Machine's Richard Sinclair. The production is one of the top notch elements on RADIATOR as well as the attention to details. "Demons" for example features not just the usual guitar, bass, drums and keys layout but also features a subtle banjo accompaniment as well as strings and a trumpet! Not to mention Beach Boys inspired harmonies which adds layers of ear worm catchiness.

Another standout is "She's Got Spies" which begins innocently enough as what sounds like a ballad before breaking into a Weezer inspired sizzling slice of pop punk before drifting off again into glacial neo-psychedleia that offers bloops, bleeps and sputtering synthesized sounds that offer strange contrapuntal sound effects. The band excelled at these off-kilter contrasts. While the music is catchy and the compositions are cleverly designed, the band also proved to be excellent at writing lyrics. The tongue in cheek "Hermann Loves Pauline" may sound like a party grunge stomper but narrates a fictitious account of the parents of Albert Einstein with references to Marie Curie and Ernesto Guevara. This was another top 40 hit.

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS achieved an even greater success on RADIATOR with no less than four top 40 hits on the British charts and rave reviews for its innovative approach of melding Britpop with nerdy electronic effects, progressive elements and various strains of alternative rock including grunge, pop punk, indie rock and even a bit of shoegaze. While this band often gets lumped into the world of progressive rock for its innovative approach, for those seeking prog musical workouts don't even enter these grounds. This is Britpop plus plus plus. Think Spacehog only with more interesting dynamics as well as much better songwriting. RADIATOR is a compelling listen from beginning to end and was the album that propelled SUPER FURRY ANIMALS onto the world's stage. The band would continue on for the next decade as Wales' most interesting band. This is an excellent experimental indie pop rock album!