No one would ever say that the Super Furry Animals are afraid of taking chances. After over a decade of making consistently engaging and sunny kaleidoscope pop music, the band is back with a brand new album titled Dark Days/Light Years. With song titles ranging from “Crazy Naked Girls” to “Lliwiau Llichar,” the band clearly isn’t ready to trade in their freak flag for mainstream pop gold. The crazy titles are matched by the bands spaced out electro pop funk that makes Dark Days/Light Years such a great album. The band’s weirdness meets pop glory is best highlighted on the track “The Very Best of Neil Diamond,” which as you probably can guess sounds nothing like the man it is named after. The track, which features world influenced guitars that meld with angular guitar lines and electronic rhythms, lays the foundation for which weirdo-in-chief front man Gruff Rhys adds his vocals as another layer to the already massive sounding song. The song (and whole album) show a band that knows how to push the envelope by making weird and hypnotic art rock, but they never go too far and have consistently proven over the years to be able to make music that has few rivals in originality and creativity.

Super Furry Animals “The Very Best of Neil Diamond” (mp3)

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Also: Super Furry Animals on the Late Show with David Letterman