I'm not in love with you, but I won't hold that against you

So you know those kinds of bands that you always mean to get into sooner or later, but yet you never really find the time to get around to checking them out? Well, up until a couple of months ago, Super Furry Animals were That Band for me. I had always been sort of intrigued by the idea of them—wacky Welsh psych-poppers, what's not to love?—yet I had always been distracted by other bands whose discographies I hadn't quite fully explored. It became more of a pressing matter with their discovery by my British friend Richard, who soon bought their entire discography on a whim before seeing them in concert. Incidentally, a couple of months ago is when I was going to Europe for the first time and taking some time off from my family's and my primary destination of Paris to take a day trip to London. I had told Richard that I was only going there to meet another friend, Alex, and that my parents would not let me see anyone else since they were going to be with me. Well, as it turned out, my parents let Alex and me go off on our own since they went to get a cell phone (figures...sorry Rich, next time), and Alex had picked up the greeting present from Richard to give to me. I opened the loosely wrapped package and out fell the SFAs' first two albums, Fuzzy Logic and Radiator, as well as a mix CD. Once I got around to listening to them, I was hooked on their idiosyncratic lyrics and impeccable melodies. But as much as I liked those two albums, it was the SFA song that Richard had included on the mix CD, "Receptacle For The Respectable," that most captivated me. It was incidentally the first song I'd heard by them, months prior, and I was glad to revisit it. But while that first time I'd been jarred by the transition from a perfect pop song in the first minute and a half to faux-death metal vocals and blorpy electronic sounds at the end, now I saw it as amusing—and addictive. I knew I wanted to hear more from these guys, so I made it my mission to track down the album that that song was from, Rings Around The World. Luckily for me, it wasn't that hard at all to find—when I made my quarterly trip to my local record store a few weeks later, there it was, and used and under $10 to boot! I took it home, wondering what would be in store—and I was not disappointed. As Richard would say, it's bloody brilliant.

Yes, I'm aware that it's got an ugly cover, but albums are like books—they can't be judged by the covers. It's certainly not a cohesive album in the traditional sense, what with its constant genre-hopping from pop to folk to electronic to soul, sometimes even within the span of one song! Byt my best description of this album is that it reminds me a good bit of The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, but it's EVEN BETTER. And Welsh! (although sadly not in Welsh, check out "Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir"—or "Nick The Dolly, Your Wife Went Here," as I like to call it—off Radiator for that) Like the Lips' 1999 masterpiece, this album has an epic, sweeping feel and tight pop hooks, but it's far goofier and much less serious in tone, and its instrumentals are mercifully shorter than The Soft Bulletin's. "(A) Touch Sensitive" is actually a track that holds its own with the songs with vocals, it's a neat little electronic piece. And the rest of the songs are just plain great. "It's Not The End Of The World?" is perhaps the most "epic" of the songs on Rings Around The World with its echo effect and swelling strings, but it's not so much an apocalyptic anthem as a reassurance when things are bad ("At least it's not the end of the world!"), and it also throws in a hilarious falsetto from singer Gruff Rhys. The somewhat-title track, "(Drawing) Rings Around The World," is a silly, fuzzy power-pop track with such whimsical lyrics as "Sheep are becoming radioactive!" and "Earth will become Saturn II!", which really add to its fun atmosphere. At the far opposite end of the spectrum from that song is "No Sympathy," which starts off as a folk-ballad ode to misanthropy and veers off into synth noise by the end. "Run! Christian, Run!" is a sweeping, slow country song that skewers cultish religious fundamentalists (which I find particularly amusing.) Best of all, aside from the aforementioned "Receptacle For The Respectable," is "Presidential Suite," which has this unforgettable opening verse:

Monica and naughty Billy

Got together something silly

A holy war out of lusty minutes

Another Cuban cigar crisis

Honestly, do we need to know if he really came inside her mouth?

How will all this affect me now and later?

So basically this is one of the best pop albums I've discovered this year, and the SFA are in strong contention for the best band I've discovered this year (although The Magnetic Fields are giving them some stiff competition), and anyone who likes a little idiosyncrasy and creativity in music ought to love Rings Around The World. Enjoy!

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?znnmz4nzzjl