7 Super Furry Animals Dark Days/Light Years ROUGH TRADE, 2009

You say: “Their last album to date is easily their best postCreation LP. Inaugural Trams shows they can write a great song about literally anything, The Very Best Of Neil Diamond insanely catchy.” Eddie Robson, via e-mail

If Dark Days/Light Years really is the final Super Furry Animals LP, it represents both a riotous return to form and a worthy adieu. From opener Crazy Naked Girls’ nu-P-Funk freakery to Inaugural Trams – effectively Autobahn updated for MittelEuropean urban transit systems with a Deutsche rap from Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy – through the Isleys punch of Bunf’s White Socks/ Flip Flops, this was a band reenergised by the power of groove. Emblematic of a canon defined by absurdist wisdom, only SFA could deliver a song called The Very Best Of Neil Diamond that lives up to its title.