Customer Reviews

Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power

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

 

 

let me state for the record, i think the furries rock hard...and are a very awe-inspiring band in an age of mediocrity.

but now i'd like to know two things, what the furries were taking when they made this dvd, and what the other reviewers here were taking when they gave it 4 or 5 star ratings. (i'm assuming both the furries and the reviewers on this site were on acid).

after popping this in my dvd player and hitting play, i prepared myself for wonderfully innovative, quirky, and often thought inspiring videos, much like their brilliant rings around the world DVD...boy was i sure in for a world of dissapointment.

instead, you get to watch wallpaper change patterns so incredibly slowly, that you won't even notice it at first.

no, i'm not joking. i wish i was. it is the most incredibly dull thing i've ever witnessed. kudos to anybody who can sit through the whole thing.

the actual real videos you can only access one at a time. here the dvd earns itself one star, for the cute and very very brief intro animations to each song, , usually involving very strange creatures doing very odd things.
this is the ONLY portion of the dvd that has ANY CONTENT WHATSOEVER. when the song actually kicks in....you get to sit and watch a glorified winamp visualization for the duration of the song. seriously, it doesn't change or anything. just some trippy watery effects on your screen, repeating over and over for the entire song.. i'd have much more fun watching my lava lamp.

even further to my chagrin, i check amazon.com and see that PEOPLE GAVE IT REALLY REALLY GOOD RATINGS! they went so far as to call it innovative, and risky.

um....sure....whatever you say. are these same people in awe of their winamp visualizations, or are they just tripping balls? i wonder....

*sighs out of dissapointment*

don't get this, it's SO dull...i've watched it twice, just to make sure i wasn't missing anything...and i wasn't. it's now sitting in my room wasting shelf space.

rings around the world, however, was awesome and i'd reccomend it to anybody.

oh, the remixes were quite nice, too.

I had originally gone to the store to buy the Phantom Power CD, but figured this was a much better deal @ only $5 more with the visuals, the 5.1 sound, & the 16 additional remixes of the songs from the album.

That was the right decision.

I think the DVD is best suited for listening to/watching on a PC since it's realy "clicky" - and this is the one problem I have with it - there's apparently no way to play through all the songs with their individual visuals without manually starting each.

Despite that, the bottom line here is that this DVD sounds & looks great. If you're a SFA fan you've got to have it. If you're not a SFA fan & love innovation in music, visuals, or DVD production put down the $20 on this - you won't be disappointed.

I don't know why the producers of this DVD thought that watching wallpaper patterns change excruciatingly slow would be interesting. But that's the video for the entire album. There are also individual videos for each song which are equally boring. Some look like high-school multimedia projects.

This is not as revolutionary as the Rings Around The World DVD which had interesting videos for each song.

The music however is very good and is one of SFA's best recordings. Get the CD instead. Your not missing anything without this DVD.

[DW]

Sure, the liner notes are cool, the images are awesome, but I agree with the above review, put them all together, watching wallpaper change?

This could have been an amazing multimedia experience, instead it almost like a "This is Spinal Tap" rip-off of a band trying to poke fun at Beatle-esque Sgt.Pepper movies...I have made more interesting videos on my Win-Amp visualizer!

I was anticipating this DVD with much enthusiasm, however I am very disappointed...buy the cd instead...and avoid this DVD, the 3 stars is only because I think the drawings are original and interesting...

I think a lot of people are going to miss the point of this DVD. But I for one was taken on ride I didn't expect and one I can appreciate amongst the current level of health and safety style music DVDs out there. Again this band keeps on doing it like no other. Completely original material, not an old pop video or pre album gig in sight

5:1 sounds absolutely great and that's the key isn't it? I actually managed to listen to this DVD; while at the same time was introduced to alternative modes of thought and some very cool visuals. No it doesn't move at a pace that the MTV generation would appreciate but I don't see how a one dimensional term like 'boring' can be used to describe this DVD, it kept me up all night!! Take a risk, open your mind, borrow it, then buy it.

There is a lot to like. The Furries set the bar pretty high on their first DVD Rings Around the World, so they tried something different altogether. The wallpaper companion requires a lot of investment in time, haven't checked it yet. Unfortunately, the visually rich song intros and videos proper can only be viewed one at a time. Surely a DVD authoring oversight? Great tunes! Is this band finally going to get above the radar? Maybe in the UK, but in the US, it's like trying to appease a mass of brain-dead zombies. They just want more slop!