- Opinion
- 09 Oct 19
Another endearing foray from Super Furry Animals frontman
Gruff Rhys has recorded one of the catchiest and most carefree albums of his career. That's quite a boast considering his work fronting the feelgood, Britpop-adjacent Super Furry Animals, and the fact he once released a record with the aggressively cuddly moniker of Candylion.
Pang! is also a Welsh-language project incorporating snatches of Zulu, and is co-produced by South African electro-jazz artist Muzi. It could have been a self-indulgent exercise, that'd make you put in the hard effort rather than the artist.
But Rhys can never be anything less than uncomplicatedly joyful. Even his darkest songs - like the early SFA classic 'If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You' - light up with mischievous wit. So it goes here: the title track is brightly-hued and ferociously winsome. And he slows to a delicious slumbering amble on 'Ara Deg' ("Slowly" in Welsh).
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Politics does raise its head. Rhys was clear speaking to Hot Press in 2016 that the Welsh people had been duped ahead of the Brexit vote: hence the hard-to-comprehend majority for Leave in the referendum. "We are living in a post-truth environment," he said. "With austerity... people are frustrated".
He returns to the subject with 'Niwl o Anwiredd' - "Fog of Lies" - where he breaks down Britain's freewheeling constitutional chaos through the medium of lounge jazz. Like everything else here, it finds a way to be simultaneously throwaway and searing, familiar and brilliantly bonkers.