Phantom Power
A grim mood stalks the Super Furry Animals' spellbound sixth studio album, but, luckily, brilliant music spirits away the thematic gloom as florid semi-acoustic ballads and technicolor glam rock keeps the darkness at bay. Take "Hello Sunshine," a sleepyBeatles-esque number in which Gruff Rhys stands proud on a Freak Power ticket: "I'm a minger / You're a minger too / So come on mingers / I want to ming with you." WhenPhantom Poweris bleak, it's startlingly so. TheStooges-like "Out of Control" is as dark as any Furries song to date. But more often this collection is playful: Rhys appropriates the language of blues and twists it in modern angles on the galloping, glammy "Golden Retriever," while "Slow Life" finds keyboardist Cian Ciaran's demonstrating a skill for electronic assimilation that's previously proved elusive. Sure, it's a jumble, but, like the Beatles'White Album, it hangs together.--Louis Pattison