Hey Venus!

We Say...

Review by James McNair

For their eighth studio record, Welsh psychonauts Super Furry Animals commissioned veteran acclaimed Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami to paint the cover and sent him a detailed letter of guidance. Broadly, Tanaami’s brief spoke of a concept album of sorts, its story that of a small-town girl worn down by failed romance and mass consumerism upon moving to the big bad city. Later, our heroine — presumably the Venus of the album’s title — becomes a TV star after a fashion photographer spots her in a gardening centre, but she must endure a stint working at a strip club, and the death of her young child before she eventually finds “true love and salvation.”

All life is here then, but musically speaking Hey Venus! is far more upbeat than the plot outlined above might suggest. “This song is based on a true story — which would be fine if it wasn’t autobiographical,” quips front man Gruff Rhys at the start of album standout “Runaway.” What ensues is a huge, Spector-esque slab of sound sprinkled with glockenspiel, SFA’s well-attuned pop sensibilities even sanctioning a telegraphed-but-welcome key change for the song’s final chorus. Elsewhere, the Brian Wilson-like verses of “Show Your Hand” seem to shimmer in their own heat haze, while “The Gift That Keeps Giving” conjures the Isley Brothers with horns scored by Burt Bacharach.

Anything but minimalist, the band that once toured summer festivals in a refurbished tank here unpacks a sonic arsenal that includes sitar, dulcimer, and fizzing analogue synthesizer, but as always it’s the inventiveness of SFA’s arrangements that impresses most. Sussed rallentando endings; the gnarled country tropes on “Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon”; the tight-but-loose groove of “Neo Consumer” — such are the details that evince master craftsmen at work on Hey Venus!