I’ve always admired the Super Furry Animals for their songwriting, attitude, quiet but constant principles and for their Welshness, all of which make the band distinctive. In recent years they seem to have come of age with a conscionable brand of rock which is by turns melodic and adventurous, and unafraid of quirkiness or tongue-in-cheek pastiche.

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The latest album Phantom Power follows 2001’s Rings Around The World as a collection of ostensibly poppy, catchy tunes with enough instrumental invention to eclipse all other mainstream acts. Superb production is the hallmark of the modern-day SFA. The lyrics, marked by surreal childlike imagery and enjoyable witticisms, also have enough dark connotations to bear reflection.

Hello Sunshine opens with a dreamy female vocal that is answered by country guitar twang and a pub piano, encroaching FX and buzzing guitar at two and a half minutes in. SFA do deceptively simple things like vocal harmonies very well, and there are plenty of Abbey Road moments and pop culture exuberance in the lolloping lyrics: “I’m a minger / You’re a minger too / So come on minger / I want to ming with you.”

Birdsong (sampled rhythmically through effects later in the song) and shakers introduce Gruff Rhys’ invitingly unique accent on Liberty Bell. A geographer’s pilgrimage taking in “Galilee…Angelsey…Tallahassee…Abu Dhabi…New York City…New Jersey” sweeps past in lyrics that seem to malign a modern-day descent to pollution and grime, but in the tones of The Lightning Seeds’ pub rock, for a happy but subversive song.

Golden Retriever is a brilliant, surreal anthem reminiscent of T-Rex, stomping all over the toms. A Martin acoustic, unabashed backing vocals scaling the heights, heavy use of phaser at the end and it’s cut to a sublime 2.25min.

A sedate country vibe (heard before on Rings’ Presidential Suite) marks Sex, War and Robots. With oblique lyrics yet uplifting Elliot Smith choruses, strings enter a surprisingly spread out mix, with lots of room to drift. There’s a cheesy “if tears could kill…” repeat and fade, but it’s a useful transition to The Piccolo Snare, with its beguiling Beach Boys harmonies, piano, percussion and atmospheric guitar fading in and out. After acres of folky build-up, this breaks into an airy chorus, layered with new instruments and harmonies on each repeat, effects and panning which really augment the song. It’s approaches a mini-epic as a “dreaming, dreaming, dreaming” epitaph is left in almost barbershop style. Then funky bass and drums arise with celesta and guitar overdubs before cutting out to a drum machine. Quite a subtle miracle of a track.

From the album notes we glean the information that “raised by wolves until the age of two, my closest childhood friends and confidants were my two pet turtles, Venus & Serena.” Not the tennis players then? A dialogue between father and son characters is reinforced by trumpet and the usual pop-rock backing but the rising chorus is great (not least when you glean he’s singing an ode to amphibians or sports goddesses), the second time being underpinned by electronic tom accents. There follows an interlude titled Father Father #1 (the album apparently began life as a song cycle around the chord progression D-A-D-D-A-D) which conjures an epic sound through Nick Drake-esque guitar, Spanish military brass, timpani and Cornelius-esque choir Ahh-ing and a range of shady effects.

Bleed Forever is an easy on the ear blend of schmaltzy guitars and Rhys’ voice doing a Damon Albarn impression. The highlights are the added touches of what sounds like a Geiger counter put through a pitchshifter pedal throughout. Primal Scream-like Out Of Control is a bass and piano octave driven rock-out with a snare metronome. Shades of glam and Alice Cooper develop lyrical slogans, but the song requires a development or counterpoise and doesn’t have one, making it feel too short. Next to Cityscape Skybaby and a synthy ooze out of which assonant lyrics wrap themselves around melodic phrases. It sounds like a step on from Leisure-period Blur, if Damon had cultivated the idiosyncratic pronunciation of a Welsh accent.

Father Father #2 is similar to the first instalment, this time borrowing Nick Drake’s string arrangements as well as his guitar sound. Still it’s a worthy inclusion, if only to set up Valet Parking, or “Cardiff to Vilnius in five easy verses.” An effect-ridden journey, there’s some good interchanges between a spoken and sung narrative, and light-hearted backing vocals supplying the momentum here.

The Undefeated faces up to an anonymous oppressor in ebullient fashion, with brassy fanfares and a brief steel band instrumental, and more overtones of the environmental struggle (SFA have their own forest, by the way: www.futureforests.com/superfurryanimals). It’s a tad lengthy, but the a cappella breakdown over crackly LFO-style industrial samples at the end is a good way to effect closure.

The last track, Slow Life is momentous, a Kraftwerk-infected collage of sound, which builds into a more acoustic array of instruments for the inimitable vocals – “flaunt you/disconnect you/cluster fuck you/we will crush you/rocks are slow life” – and then heads back between the Europop revival. The transitions are seamless, and the hooks catchy enough to encourage the listener to a weightless feeling as they develop. Heard as the ironic celebratory ending of the album, the sudden ending should not surprise nor satisfy, but that doesn’t seem to be the point.

At once revelling in and decrying the cosmetic, the Super Furry Animals’ music is the perfect accompaniment to a monotonous working day. As the name of the album might suggest, the band do an astute job of disguising any frankly sincere statements, but many lessons are there potentially, to haunt and to cherish. D.Rose

• Filed in music under super furry animals,gruff rhys,phantom power
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