Dark Days / Light Years [Import]

Super Furry Animals | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 14, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Rough Trade
• ASIN: B001VE2B2O
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,783 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

2009 album from the Welsh Psychedelic Pop legends, their ninth studio album. Where previous albums have seen the band experiment with extra instrumentation, this release is full of songs based on grooves rather than ensemble composition. The band's impish sense of humor remains, though, with track titles such as 'The Very Best Of Neil Diamond' and 'Moped Eyes' standing out. Also notable is Franz Ferdinand guitarist Nick McCarthy's guest appearance on the Kraftwerk-inspired 'Inaugural Trams', performing a German-language rap. In keeping with more recent albums, the band also share lead vocal duties between several members. 12 tracks. Rough Trade. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SFA still progressive!, April 23, 2009

By 

Nse Ette (Lagos, Nigeria) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dark Days/Light Years (Audio CD)

Welsh group Super Furry Animals first caught my attention in 2001 with their brilliant hit single "Juxtaposed with you". Breezy and soulful, it sounded like nothing else on the album it came from ("Rings around the world"), but then again, most of what they do sounds different and striking. Their music has always been an acquired taste, and this CD, superb though it may be, is no different.

"Dark Days/Light Years", their ninth studio album is more of the same; swirling psychedelic aural pieces which are not too radio friendly and require lots of listening to get into. Case in point, the epic swirling trippy-sounding "Cardiff in the sun" (with endless "Sha la la"s), the cleverly titled "The very best of Neil Diamond" (a groovy piece with quivering guitar and sitar sounds, and muffled lyrics telling the tale of a post-apocalyptic world in which the lone sound is a stereo blaring Diamond's "Solitary Man"), the retro-groovy sung/whistled "Pric", "Inaugural trams" (which finds Franz Ferdinand guitarist Nick McCarthy rapping in German to a chugging Prog Rock backdrop), or the opening cut "Crazy naked girls" (with squiggly funky guitars) which sounds like "Purple Rain" circa Prince in parts. They sound so un-alike as to have been performed by different groups.

Other standouts include the groovy "Moped eyes", the sunny bouncy "Helium hearts", "White socks/Flip flops" (with a Keith Richards riff set to Motown-style beats), and the beach Boys-chanelling "Lliwiau Llachar".

This is a superb album, and it is great to see a group so far into their career still being creative and ground breaking. Brilliant!!

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating but hopeful., April 25, 2009

By 

Dingleberry (NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Days/Light Years (Audio CD)

If your preferred SFA releases are, 'Rings Around The World', 'Phantom Power' and 'Lovecraft' this review may be of some use.

SFA's last record, 'Hey Venus' deviated somewhat from their previous three releases. Gone was most of the stunning technical wizardry and wild imagination in favor of more conventional song structures. Not a bad thing in itself, 'Ohio Heat' from, 'Lovecraft' was pretty straight forward but one of my favorites from that album.

'Dark Days / Light Years' is similar to, 'Hey Venus' in that guitars are more to the fore on most of the songs but it also sees a return of some of what I came to love about the three releases I referred to above.

I'm grateful to the band for streaming all the songs from, 'DD / LY' in their entirety on their Myspace page. After my disappointment with, 'Hey Venus' this gave a now cautious fan a chance to assess whether it was worth buying the CD or just downloading selected tracks.

In the end I downloaded four tracks - 'Moped Eyes', 'Helium Hearts', 'Pric' and the excellent, 'The Very Best Of Neil Diamond'.

The first track, 'Crazy Naked Girls' starts off promisingly and is quite addictive but then it changes course and heads off into prog-rock territory. 'Inaugural Trams' is also a great track but suffers due to a constant guitar drone running for the entire song that I found impossible to enjoy or ignore. 'Cardiff In The Sun' would have been better had it ended at five and a half minutes instead of going for more than eight minutes. As for the rest - many good ideas spoiled by repetition or unwelcome (at least to this listener's ears) guitar detours.

The last track, 'Pric' extends to the ten minute mark but essentially ends at six minutes with the last four minutes consisting of atmospheric, electronic noodling - pleasant but not as essential or radical as say the end of, 'No Sympathy' from, 'Rings Around The World'. As I love the first six minutes, I edited the WAV file down to 6.02 minutes using the freeware program, Audacity.

So, another mixed bag from SFA but something for fans of all their different styles. Maybe the next release will inch back a little further towards the heady (or is that head?) days of, 'Phantom Power'.

Pitchfork TV ( http://pitchfork.com/tv/ ) currently have a great forty eight minute film on their site of SFA in the studio performing and talking about some of 'DD / LY'. Gruff looks like he's constipated most of the time but he and the rest of the band sure are interesting guys.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super Furry Animals - The Welsh Beatles, May 26, 2009

By 

Thomas J. Walsh "TW" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Days/Light Years (Audio CD)

Well, another insanely interesting and sonically rewarding release from one of the world's finest bands, The Super Furry Animals. This release moves into a more drum, bass and guitar heavy dynamic, and it's the closest the band comes to laying down some crunching funk (albeit mixed with a heavy dose of psych freakouts). It moves from dreamy psychedelia, to crunching guitars, to gorgeous 60's Beach Boys pop, to krautrock. It's simply more brilliance from a band that is untainted by it's peers in the music business, and one that purely strives for sonic nirvana and creativity.

Folks - get to the know the Super Furry Animals. They are the best.