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Songbook: The Singles Vol. 1
Especially in recent years, Super Furry Animals have proven to be exemplary album artists, each disc a cohesive start-to-finish tour de force. Regardless, even SFA’s best albums are anchored by ace singles, many of which are rounded up in “Songbook Vol. 1,” something akin to a best-of collection from the Welsh pop masters. Beginning with the sunny Beatles-esque “Something for the Weekend,” the disc goes on to cover everything from the band’s fuzzy Welsh language curiosities (“Blerwytirhwng?” and “Ysbeidiau Heulog”) to more accessible–but no less catchy–songs, such as the blues riff “Golden Receiver” and the faux soul of “Juxtapozed with U.” There’s even a truncated version of the band’s raucous 30-minute set closer “The Man Don’t Give a F***,” here cut down to a more easily digestible five minutes.
Best track: The grand, heavily orchestrated “It’s Not the End of the World” or the quirky, upbeat steel-drum-adorned “Northern Lites”–there’s simply too much good stuff to choose from here.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])