Super Furry Animals - 'Hey Venus!' (RoughTrade) Released 27/08/07

If a new, enthralling band you’ve followed for what seemed like an eternity finally make it big - introducing themselves to a wider audience and a glorious future, apart from feeling the odd bit of jealousy, it’s a somewhat satisfying experience. But it can lead you to forget quite how great you can feel when your old favourites return with all matches burning, on their finest form. That can be an even better feeling. It’s been a year in which those priceless comebacks have kept us waiting and waiting. They’ve either been hiding in the corners or they’re just not coming out to play. But if you’ve been refreshing Radiohead’s Dead Air Space for months on end only to find a blog post from Mr.Yorke riddled with….riddles every now and again, here’s a tip: Forget all and just listen to this.

For this is a comeback. Super Furry Animals have, purposely or not, shied away from the mainstream side of our endless musical world for the last decade or so. Album after album, this being their eighth, despite the hundreds of thousands of fans who climb on board each time, they’re still unknown to many. Things aren’t going to change – new single ‘Show Your Hand’ didn’t reach the top 40 in its first week, not that the band would care. But the concerning thing is, how can this happen? Despite the psychedelic influences still making themselves obnoxiously clear, each project the band works on comes out perkier and more poppy. But it’s not reaching the conscience of your everyday British citizen who likes to get all the best new music via the helping hand of Jo Whiley every afternoon.

The band simply won’t care though and this is the most important thing. They’re having fun, and no matter what comes out through their music and no matter what they get back, their smiles won’t fade. So the substance inside the record contains SFA’s unique technique of being weird yet danceable, obvious drug references and a song to match its title, ‘Baby Ate My Eightball’. The album moves carefully through a cycle of a couple of in-your-face anthems into a couple of slower numbers, and the cycle repeats until near the end, introducing us to an excess of sleepiness, which is the only true letdown of the record. Nothing here is too unpredictable, and perhaps the most surprising thing you’ll discover here is the fact that these Welshmen are still making damn good music. With experience comes a lack of ideas unfortunately for some bands, but that curse hasn’t decided to strike this band yet.