Customer Reviews

Guerrilla [Bonus CD]

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1999 was a terrific year for psychedelic rock fans.After the Flaming Lips showed they had honed their formula to a blissed out perfection with "The Soft Bulletin" the other great psych record of the year came, of all places, from Wales, residence of the Super Furry Animals.

This follow up to the welsh sung "Mwng" made abundantly clear how resourceful a band the SFA in fact were for there must be some craft involved in an album in which every single song sounds completely different from the previous.

"Do or Die" kicks off in punk pop style crashing into the medieval bard tune "Turning Tide" as seamlessly as the latter gives way to the enormous highlight that's the tropicalia of "Northern Lites".

"Nightvision" sounds like an alternative theme song for Batman and the electronic excesses of "Wherever I Lay my Phone(that's my Home)" flow neatly into the lo fi dirge of "Some things come from nothing" giving the impression that if the album ended at this point it would already be masterful.But it doesn't.It keeps piling on surprises like the festive techno workout "The Door to this House remains open", the sped up rock n'roll of"The Teacher" or the pastoral "Fire in my Heart"(a Gorky's Zygotic Mynci song in all but ownership).

As if it wasn't enough the record closes on a high note with the lovely "Chewing Chewing Gum" and the beatlesque stomp "Keep the Cosmic Trigger Happy".

Always diverse, always interesting the SFA have trully fashioned themselves into trailblazing visionaries waiting for the world to catch up with them, which it will sooner or later.

Tezcatlipoca said it better than anyone in Europe that I have heard thusfar, and they even get radio airplay over there. This album is everything that is sounds like, and then some. Who could forget the "hidden" opening track 'Citizen's Band'?? These guys could seemingly do anything, as they would prove on 2000's lo(w)-fi Welsh release 'Mwng' and their next masterpiece, 'Rings Around The World'. As for Guerilla (now backed-up by a 6-track B-sides comp, the middle-of-the-album highlight 'Some Things Come From Nothing' really "brings the album together" as they would say on one of those home-designing shows.

Bottom line....superb pop album.