Super Furry Animals
– Rings Around the World
Nothing about Rings Around the World tries to make sense in the traditional, three-chords-and-a-hook fashion. This is a band allergic to straight lines, and here, they drive off the edge with full orchestration, political satire, warped electronics, and actual pop songs—all somehow coexisting in a single, helium-laced orbit. It’s not chaos—it’s controlled whiplash, lovingly engineered for the curious ear.
Best of…
Gruff Rhys narrates with a knowing wink, like he’s broadcasting from a psychedelic pirate radio station. The lyrics swing from absurd to disarming and back again in the space of a verse. Beneath all the playful sheen lies a barbed discontent. This is protest music wrapped in bubblegum, rage filtered through a vocoder, and hope beamed in from another planet.
The production is massive. You can hear the band relishing their studio playground, layering Beach Boys harmonies with Pink Floyd textures, then setting it all ablaze with glitchy samples and techno detours. It shouldn’t work. It works spectacularly. It’s a record that asks you to trust the madness – and rewards you with every spin.
Choice Tracks
(Drawing) Rings Around the World
This track lays out the thesis: everything’s connected, and not always in a good way. Lush harmonies offset the creeping dread. It’s sweetly sung eco-terror, with a melody that sticks in your brain like static on a dead satellite feed.
Receptacle for the Respectable
A four-part suite disguised as a rock song. It starts as a sly groove, gets weirder, and then Paul McCartney shows up to chew celery—literally. It’s one of those tracks that makes you laugh, then stops you cold mid-chuckle.
Juxtapozed with U
Their most “normal” pop song, if robotic soul duets about ethical compromise count as normal. The production is glossy, almost sterile, like it’s daring you to miss the moral rot beneath the silk. Still, an undeniably catchy tune.
No Sympathy
Starts like a soft-spoken lament, then spirals into glitchy mayhem. Rhys sounds heartbroken, but the music turns mechanical, alien, maybe vindictive. The collision between feeling and circuitry is what makes it unforgettable.
Run! Christian, Run!
A gentle acoustic hymn with lyrics that might trigger a theological debate at Thanksgiving dinner. It’s one of the most haunting things they’ve done—proof that they don’t need sonic excess to leave an impact.
Rings Around the World doesn’t ask you to like everything on it—it dares you to keep up. It’s a maximalist masterpiece from a band that prefers strange detours to obvious destinations. Not just one of the best albums of its era, but a blueprint for how to get weird and still make it sing.