Super Furry Animals take great pleasure in the unpredictable. Just last year, the Cardiff-based crew pared down their gonzo electro-rock sound for an acoustic Welsh-language album that was recorded for the relatively frugal sum of #6,000. With that pastoral indie mission successfully complete, the quintet went straight back into the studio with a big-league budget for the panoramic epic that would become Rings Around The World (funding, appropriately enough, came from Epic Records, who picked them up after old label Creation folded).

The Furries sound on the new album like a proverbial kid in a candy store, and not a gumdrop of noise is wasted as the group explore the tasty (and tasteful) creative opportunities.

Recorded in DVD-quality 5.1 surround sound -- a fancy way of saying it sounds real big -- the album unfurls with the blooping orchestral dub of Alternate Route To Vulcan Street, darts between a gentle psychedelic lilt and jackhammering guitar rock on Sidewalk Serfer Girl, and, by third song (Drawing) Rings Around The World, has already dropped a stunning pop anthem at your feet. There's plenty more to digest -- chamber pop (It's The End Of The World, Shoot Doris Day), DJ Shadow-inflected techno (A Touch Sensitive), a country-psych waltz (Run! Christian! Run!), a gentle left-wing lament (Presidential Suite, featuring iconic Velvet Underground alumnus John Cale on very quiet piano).

But perhaps nothing in the Furries' chequered repertoire has ever packed a punch as schizoid as Receptacle For The Respectable, a swingingly Beatlesque number that features a barely audible rhythm chewed out on celery by none other than Paul McCartney before morphing into a death-metal track for its climax. That, in turn, clears the way for single Juxtaposed With U, which packs a bossa nova rhythm, Top 40 production, and coyly political lyrics into a shimmering soul ballad which, in a better world...

Like I said, Super Furry Animals take great pleasure in the unpredictable. So much so that, even at their most self-indulgent, the joy can't help but spill everywhere. (More on Super Furry Animals)

Track Listing