Released domestically after an eight-month wait, North Americans can finally hear for themselves what all the fuss is about with respect to Rings Around the World, the pop-rock opus by Welsh band Super Furry Animals. Rife with energy and overflowing with ideas, experiments, and glorious pop hooks, not to mention two high-profile guest appearances by John Cale and Paul McCartney, Super Furry Animals make a huge, bold statement with this album: they want to be a great band, not merely a good band, and with Rings Around the World, they just might have accomplished that feat.
Following the independent release of Mwng in 2000 (after four years with the doomed Creation Records), the UK branch of Sony signed them and basically gave them carte blanche to put together the best album they could. Plus, cash. Loads and loads of cash. The band took the opportunity to completely go overboard, using every single studio bell and whistle they could get a hold of. The resulting album is a musical mishmash we haven’t heard since the Dandy Warhols’ Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, so wildly varied musically that it’s impossible to categorise, unless your local record store has a special section for Britpop-techno-soul-country-folk-satire artists.