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Although their profile's shrunk quite some way since they jumped from the sinking Creation ship onto a major label, this round-up of Cardiff's finest psychedelic punk loons the Super Furry Animals' back catalogue to date is a welcome arrival on the "Vault" reviews desk.
It's very rare to hear a group bursting back the musical boundaries while coming up with as many great tunes as this, especially in an age where being in slave to sounding like the Buzzcocks with no tunes and a recording budget of 34p is in fashion and it's a sad indication of how far the British alt-music scene's been on a backslide in recent years that the tunes on here, seven or eight years old though they may be, piss on losers like Kasabian from a huge height.
Some highlights in brief - the lovely blissed-out "If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You", the white soul groove of "Juxtaposed With U", the frenetic "God! Show Me Magic!" and the pure punch-the-air singalongs of "Play It Cool" and "Do Or Die". A lot of the better bands of today (the Futureheads and the Coral to name but two), it's fair to say, were taking notes from these when they started out.
"Songbook" is quite simply an absolute treasure trove of brilliant songs. Put this one right at the top of your Christmas shopping list.
Rating: 9/10
Reviewed by Andy James
