Customer Reviews

Radiator

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

How does this band do it? Listen to me on this, they are the MOST ORIGINAL band on the globe, period! There is no other band attemping to fuse the music that they do, and Radiator is just one more example. This CD, the bands second release, finds the band far more weird, but more substantial than their debut material. ( which is also fantastic ) Songs like "The Placid Casual", and "Moutain People", start off as really melodic pop numbers, but morph into techno-weird excursions in sound. The classic sing-a-long "Hermann Loves Pauline" demostrates their amazing lyrical diversity coupled with some great bouncy rock. All in all, every track is a classic, original and brilliant, and full of suprises. The world is a much stranger (and far better) place as long as these boys from Wales continue to make music.

ah, the whacky world of the Super Furries. I always wonder how Gruff gets his inspiration for lyrics, apart from the obvious huge intake of spliff. For example, here, on Radiator we have:

the story of the leader of a military coup in Sierra Leone
a fictional account of Einstein's parent's relationship
a meditation on Puerto Rican vampire "goat suckers"

I mean, this isn't exactly Bush, is it? the surprising thing is, for all the whackiness, usually the first sign of an artistically-null band, the SFA produce great, catchy, imaginative rock - you'll find yourself singing happily about Einstein in the shower. Maybe it's the more conventional tracks that stand out: Demons, Gruff sounding like Bowie, is a stand-out pop song, but the mad experimentation produces a truely unique sound : The International Language of Screaming, for example, involved a fair bit of screaming - and a good tune to boot. Meanwhile, SFA aren't afraid to thrown a bit of techno styling and the occasional fragile downbeat ballad, giving the album something of a rollercoaster feel. If they didn't throw off great rock-pop tunes with a startling regularity, you might call this album inconsistent, but it's simply refusing to be pinned down and it's a hell of a lot of fun. "Radiator" is The SFA gaining confidence in their approach beyond their excellent debut, though the follow up, "Guerilla" is where things really took off.

This early Super Furries classic contains some of their best-known and best-loved songs: the darkly riffing glam pop of 'Demons'; the ambitious and bittersweet 'She's got spies', in which verse, chorus and bridge seem to be three completely different tracks, a magical mystery tour around the 60s scrapyard; and, perhaps their masterpiece, 'Hermann and Pauline', with its aching tinny keyboard melody breaking through the bouncing declamatory pop. Then there's 'Download' ('There are people who think and people who don't/ and the people who don't are the ones who have most'), with its weird descending and ascending piano scales; and the wistful Gram Parsons country of 'Mountain People', with its Morricone Western-guitar/ethereal vocals break and sudden invasion by a thudding spacestomp.

'Radiator' is so full of melodic invention and instrumental colour (including banjos, trumpets, sax, flutes, harpsichords, violins), so full of pop spirit and avant-garde adventure, so full of joy and sadness and everything in between, it seems thuggish to suggest that, as a whole, the different moods and songs don't quite mesh or satisfy. Maybe they're not supposed to. With this material, who cares?

The second CD is a ragbag of B-sides, bonus tracks and non-album singles that is even more experimental and inspired.

This is definitely an above-average record, verging on genius quite often (the first track, for example). Sonically, it has a lot in common with Olivia Tremor Control, and fans of that band will definitely enjoy this -- it's inspired by the same warped spirit of pop classicism.

Radiator is one of the most difficult great albums I've heard. In fact, the first time I listened to it, I wasn't sure I liked it at all. There aren't as many instantly satisfying songs here as there are on Rings Around the World or even Fuzzy Logic, but this one's even more admirable because of its startling dynamism in separating the oil and water differences between their grinding, avant-garde electro expressionist aesthetic and their classically influenced passion for a good pop tune.

It's easy to adore the gorgeous electronica-infused chamber pop melody of "Download," but try out the squealing fuss suspended just above the rhythm in "The Placid Casual." Then try out the multiple personality freak-out invention, "Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D." The end of "Mountain People" sounds like the band's tressed up in Devo-esque jumpsuits and firing lasers across the studio space. And they seem to take a detour through a Spaghetti Western in the middle section of "Demons." Album standout, "She's Got Spies," is a powerful blast of psychedelic pop as if delivered by raucous punks; kind of ironic that one of the more accessible songs is one of the best.

It takes an unnecessary trip through intentionally dissonant noise rock that feeds on vibrating and polarizing tones on "Hermann Loves Pauline." They even give us a minute-and-a-half throwaway in "Chupacabras" which may only seem listenable because it follows the aforementioned "Hermann." What ties the album together is the band's consistent willingness to embrace pop melodies even while leaping from one fuzzy, reverbed-out lily pad to the next. It just misses masterpiece status, but anyone who enjoyed their 2001 populist breakthrough should find plenty to like here, even if it requires patience and perspective.

Best cuts: "She's Got Spies," "Demons," "Down a Different River," "Download," "The Placid Casual," "Mountain People," "Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D." "Play It Cool," "Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir," "The International Language of Screaming"

I don't know why I waited so long to get into this band. Maybe it's because of an underwhelming music industry that hypes up all the wrong artists. However, "Radiator" (thank goodness! ) will make you forget about that for awhile. SFA have become one of my favorite bands recently. The style and melodies are strangely reminiscent of '70s art-rock bands mixed with the punk-new wave of the late '70s and early '80s. The album is a rare one in that I don't want to skip ANY (repeat ANY) of the tracks. This is one of the best albums of the '90s. Think of Blur, Yes, The Clash, Genesis, and a host of other bands rolled into one and you come close. I can't say that SFA is an original band with the influences so apparent, but who is original these days? This is still an album for the ages. Best tracks are "The Placid Casual", "She's Got Spies", "International Language of Screaming", and the driving insistent "Herman Loves Pauline".

I've bought last year's release "Guerilla" as well, and while it is very good, it cannot surpass "Radiator". SUPERB.

This is one of the few albums that I listen to on almost a daily basis. I like that it starts slow, then builds into a blistering cresendo, and mellows out at the end. If Pink Floyd and The Beatles had a kid, then it would be SFA.

Radiator is still the best album the Furries have produced. It has everything: strange obsessions - the chupacabras, Marie Curie and Vatentine Strasser; weird lyrical juxtapositions - Einstein and Che Guevara both suffered from asthma; diverse musical forms from glam-rock to techno that are somehow moulded together into a melodic but ever-changing form; anti-state politics; and moments of unexpected beauty. It seems almost wrong to pick out any tracks as being better than any of the others, but Play it Cool, She's Got Spies, Mountain People and Herman Loves Pauline are my favourites.

Despite the fact that there are certainly 'greater' albums around, none makes me feel happier or has givenme so much pleasure over a long period; if I was stranded on a desert island with only a solar-powered CD player and one CD, this would be the one I would choose - it's that good.

This album is great. I had never heard these guys before, but this cd is a great way to get to know them. I think it is better than "Guerilla", and the songs are all catchier. Best song? The International Language of Screaming(followed by a close second of She's Got Spies)

An album of two halves; the first a lesson in psychadelic pop interspersed with a couple of sub-1-minute techno bursts which have since become an SFA hallmark. The second half retreats back into a more atmospheric cove of lovely melodies, especially the stunning Download, a paen to the selfishness of and hopelessness of the world (don't worry, they're not turning into Radiohead). Gruff's lyrics mix their usual crazy subjects (goat-eating bats anyone?) with, if you dig deeper, a dry wit and questioning who is with them on their sonic odessy ("Every time I look around me everything seems so stationary, It just gives me the impulse to become reactionary"- The International Language of Screaming). But the Furries don't hang back waiting for the pack to catch up - they kick up the dust for the rest to choke on. PS. Chupacabras is one of the best pogo-ing songs ever.