Gruff Rhys - album review

INDIE

Super Furry Animals have always had an irresistible, hapless charm, none more so than bobble-headed stoner frontman Gruff Rhys. Freed from his bandmates’ influence, Rhys comes up with a warm and fuzzy smile-inducing collection of essentially silly pop with its sound firmly rooted in a 70s folky funk rock sound and its subject matter gleaned from the weirder end of his fecund imagination. There is perhaps inevitably a touch of self-indulgence here, most notably on the rather boring 14-minute closer ‘Skylon!’, but when he sticks to the golden pop nuggets of the title track and ‘Gyrru Gyrru Gyruu’, Rhys is onto a feelgood winner.