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Nov 17, 2016 Super Furry Animals By Cody Ray Shafer

For the seminal Welsh band Super Furry Animals, genre is merely another tool to accentuate their big sound, laden with imaginative synths and heavily orchestrated guitars. They deserve credit for producing music that is endlessly interesting, fun, and surprising.

Now, 20 years into their career, we can look back and see how consistently fantastic they have been from the start. The band has marked the occasion with a reissue of their 1996 debut album, Fuzzy Logic, as well as a best of collection, Zoom! The Best of Super Furry Animals 1995-2016. The latter is more than worthwhile, especially for the unfamiliar, as quite a few of these singles are absolute pop masterpieces, especially “Run-Away,” “Juxtapozed With U,” and “The Man Don’t Give a Fuck.”

It is the timelessness of Super Furry Animals’ music that’s allowed Fuzzy Logic to age so well. It is a fever dream of fuzzy riffs and infectious melodies. In fact, psychedelic rock doesn’t quite cover the plethora of motifs that Super Furry Animals bounce between; elements of electro-glam blend seamlessly with folk-tinged surrealism. Fuzzy Logic would establish a pattern of reliably great albums over the next 15 years.

With most bands, the first record serves as a sloppy blueprint of the paths they will follow through their discographies. Not so with Super Furry Animals. Sure, later albums like Rings Around the World and Radiator may be more essential, but Fuzzy Logic stands up among them as a solid record. Even the reissue was treated with remarkable creative focus and it has 35 bonus tracks, including all the album’s B-sides, two demo sessions, and a live festival set from 1996. Super Furry Animals were amazing from the beginning, and their music only grew more eclectic over time. (www.superfurry.com)

Author rating: 9/10