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Super Furry Animals

Fuzzy Logic 8½ ( 1996 )
God! Show Me Magic / Fuzzy Birds / Something for the Weekend / Frisbee / Hometown Unicorn / Gathering Moss / If You Don't Want Me to Destroy You / Bad Behaviour / Mario Man / Hangin' with Howard Marks / Long Gone / For Now and Ever

I bought this album by mistake, meaning to buy a Baby Bird album instead. I was trying to remember a song I heard and wasn't quite sure who it was by. A fortunate mistake as it turned out as Fuzzy Logic to this day remains clever and melodic and good, wholesome indie-rock fun. Well, we have a pretty mushy sound in terms of instrumental seperation, which generally means the band aren't actually much cop as musicians, yet they certainly prove themselves as being able to write melodies, as the less than two minutes of bass, fuzz and simple hooks demonstrated by 'God Show Me Magic' demonstrate. 'Bad Behaviour' follows with less than convincing and typically indie off-tune vocals - the bass and drums continue to pound away, almost like a glam rock band. The guitars are indistinct fuzzes of noise and the singer would probably sound stupid singing solo accompianed by a piano, yet the hooks continue. They even see fit to include that ultra alien device that few indie bands even comprehend including, ever, anywhere - a guitar solo. It's simple, it's high register and squeaky and the average metal fan who frown at it's incompetence, but there it is. 'Something For The Weekend' is enough to hook you totally in, a Sixties mess of Nineties indie, packed full of Beatles melodies as the best British acts do, incapable of ignoring their musical heritage. ELO harmonies, ELO on speed crossed with a Punk attitude. The vocalist, previously incapable of holding a tune suddenly grabs this one and throws it your face. The 'i just keep repeating myself' vocal refrain is ELO 'Mr Blue Sky' and Super Furry Animals throw in a slice of Syd-era Pink Floyd for good measure.

You can see me try and pin down Super Furry Animals with my above comments, but then comes along the laconic glory of 'If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You', Marc Bolan's 'Cosmic Dancer' crossed with George Martin's Beatles orchestrations - it's a thing of beauty. 'Bad Behaviour' is speed and energy and Oasis mush, 'Long Gone' is George Harrison and utterly fantastic, full of rising hope and glorious wish for attainment. The closing 'For Now And Ever' is utterly shambolic in it's total ineptitude and some music fans couldn't bear it, yet 'Fuzzy Logic' overall is shambolic, yet it's a bunch of tunes aiming to be glorious pop-art, against all logical sense. In that sense, the album title is perfect, the glam-rock optimisn shines through and, overall, it just makes you very happy indeed. Job done.

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