Super Furry Animals - Rings Around the World
(Sony)
Label-less with the dissolution of Creation Records, yet enjoying peak mass and critical appeal in the U.K., the Super Furry Animals have apparently hitched themselves to Sony Music's corporate apparatus. Granted what must have been an amply generous, if not enormous, budget, the celebrated Welsh band spared no expense in realizing its fifth magnum opus. I'd have expected the Furries to display the same indie-gence as the pre-Spy Kids Robert Rodriguez, he famously quoted for suggesting that a $10-million studio film budget be used to make five $2-million films. But, no. A rather lavish affair, encompassing multiple editions and a companion DVD featuring original videos commissioned for each album track, Rings Around the World reeks of obscene amounts of money surprisingly well spent on both promotion and production. Yet, even in the face of such extravagance, the fab Furries have remained true to their incisive guerrilla-pop stance. Rings is no less than a concept album, apparently about the tyranny of telecommunications and unchecked technological advancement; the titular tinnitus is typical of the double-edged wit wielded throughout with (mostly) purposeful precision.
"Alternate Route to Vulcan Street" comes on like the piano accompaniment to a silent film, the gentle invitation expanding to incorporate wide-screen strings and symphonic rock orchestration until you're completely under the music's soothing spell. Gruff Rhys' comfortably numbed drone about the interplanetary airlift from impending disasters both geophysical and interpersonal sets off warning bells—not to mention a plethora of sci-fi whirrs and whooshes—but there's no turning back. The Furries furtively locked the door while you weren't looking, and further in is now your only way out. As long as you're here, you might as well listen, not only to the immensely hummable songs but to the urgent words as well. Over the years, the Super Furry Animals have grown into a fiercely nationalistic, politically aware entity. This is no mere dumb pop band. If the Furries are concerned enough about a situation to sound the alarm, perhaps we should be, too
Into the fray of "Sidewalk Serfer Girl," then. Just another silly love song, despite the meta-pop flotam—chattering breakbeats, tweaked electronics, freaky vocal splinterings and distortions—and pile-driving metal riffs. Or is it? Initially, you're as overwhelmed as poor Patty Whitebull, who wakes from a 15-year coma to be confronted with the disorienting reality of the Internet. But the song's soaring chorus ultimately wins out, and those high Beach Boys harmonies hint that Patty will soon be surfin' AOL, seeking love in all the wrong cyberplaces just like everyone else. A happy ending? Taken with the cheery title track's admonition that rampant telecommunication is weaving an invisible radiospheric web that will ultimately strangle our planet, one begins to wonder. "It's Not the End of the World" proves beyond a doubt that acute conscience and consciousness are at work here, not just trendy paranoia or Luddite distaste for technology. The Furries plead for civilization to slow down and weigh the euphoria of accelerated progress against the inevitable consequences, adopting the perfect tone—simple and direct; a melody as sage and patient as a loving parent, an orchestral arrangement just ornate enough to emphasize but not overwhelm the important message; gentle observations that illustrate how the modern world's breakneck pace is taking its toll. This extraordinary song deserves to be embraced and taken to heart as universally as John Lennon's "Imagine." The words "let's make a difference" are delivered so tenderly and earnestly as to ring with hope that it's still not too late.
Alas, it's a rapid downhill slide for the Furries from there. Beyond its elaborate construction, "Receptacle for the Respectable" offers little food for thought. If there's lyrical substance here, it's lost within the indecipherable jigsaw assemblage of Fuzzy Logic outtakes, Brian Wilson bits, and Black Metal vocal effects. Sir Paul McCartney is credited with contributing "celery + carrots" to this mess, whatever that means. Rings Around the World really loses its footing at this point. Until the final tracks slightly return to the album's earlier brilliance, we get "[A] Touch Sensitive," a tossed-off instrumental that sounds like one of St. Etienne's stoned dub experiments (according to the credits, the samples were lifted from the Stooges' "Ann!"), and the tolerable pop-prog bombast of "Shoot Doris Day." The much-repeated key phrase "People never stay the same / It's a fight between the wild and tame" sounds like it means something, but only the Furries could tell you what. Exclamations such as " I've some feelings that I can't get through / I'll just binge on crack and tiramisu" seem provocative enough, though namedropping Jimmy Stewart alongside a call for a military coup does little to clarify the picture. Maybe the video can make sense of it all.
"No! Sympathy" and "Juxtapozed With U" are even more baffling, especially considered as a couplet. While the former song, mostly a dead ringer for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, states its adamantly unsympathetic agenda in no uncertain terms, ending with the smiley thought "You deserve to die," "Juxtapozed With U" states "You've got to tolerate / All those people that you hate / I'm not in love with you / But I won't hold that against you." Huh? This must be where PoMo irony comes in. How is one to interpret the ending of "No! Sympathy"—a thicket of drill n' bass and techno tomfoolery ornery enough to intimidate the Aphex Twin? Or, for that matter, the absolutely bizarre AM disco-lounge setting of the gratuitously Vocoder-voiced "Juxtapozed With U?" Obviously the Furries don't mean for either song to be taken too seriously—or literally. But why is such a smart band wasting its (and our) time with the sort of pseudointellectual games that one would expect from Cake? "Juxtaposed" still qualifies as a guilty-pleasure, rewarding the attentive with such intriguing lyrical crumbs as "Over priced unreal estate / Surreal estate" and an undeniably hooky tune and chorus. It's certainly better than "Presidential Suite," a surprisingly ham-fisted indictment of the media's excessive interest in the peccadilloes of political figures. The smirking, superior tone recalls the U.K. tabloid frenzy that greeted Monicagate; the treacly, string-glutted arrangement and crooning are overripe Motown. And hearing Welsh musicians chide Former President and World Leader William Clinton as "Naughty Billy" just doesn't sit very well with my American constitution. I concur with the conclusion that all such affairs (Yeltsin's alcoholism is also addressed) amount to much ado about nothing in hindsight. But there must be better ways to express said sentiment without resorting to such cringe-worthy lines as "Honestly! Do we really need to know / If he really came inside her mouth?" Tacky, guys.
Down, down, down. Then, finally, a ray of hope. Even if "Run! Christian, Run!" were a reading of a shopping list or personal ad, the Furries' note-perfect emulation of Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds' melodic majesty would make this song a winner. As it is, the U.K. perspective on the often blind apocalyptic mentality of certain American Christian sects suits the poignant strings n' strums and weepy harmonica and harmonizing just fine. I do wonder, though, how this song got away from Gorky's Zygotic Mynci—another band of Welsh moppets whose music has seen a disappointing turn toward the trad.
The closing "Fragile Happiness" sounds like a rewrite of early SFA B-side favorites like "Sali Mali" and "Dim Bendith," but it's short and sweet and hard to find much fault with. A weirdly touching question about Will Smith's idyllic Miami crowns wistful lyrics that pick up aboard "Vulcan Street"'s airship—and seemingly leave the ultimate outcome in the listeners' hands. The End? All in all, an uneven showing for a great band's major-label debut, but still worth hearing. And "It's Not the End of the World" really is that special.
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