'Phantom Power' falters

The Super Furry Animals are another one of those bands who receive quite a lot of critical praise for what's in its record collection and what elements of that collection show up on their records. I guess it's not a bad theory that if you listen to good music then the music you end up making will be good … but then again, how many bands out there can honestly say they didn't grow up listening to the Beatles?\n Between piano driven ballads and fuzzed-out psychedelic rock you'd think Super Furry Animals could really come up with an original sound. The vocals are non-distinct, the metaphors strain at being clever and changes end up being incredibly predictable. The little blips and electronic crackles here and there seem to self-consciously try to remedy this, and actually do at times. It's almost as if the band is saying "see, we're not so generic after all." With Paul McCartney and hippy culture's stamp all over it, I'm not buying. \n Like some of McCartney's later work, Phantom Power aims at unadulterated pop with the gleam of a conscience here and there, begging to unite the people by not taking anything too far. The messages are delivered in a nice little package that is better left unopened and because of the heavy-handed metaphors, they'll usually stay that way to the casual listener. Like all good pop albums, the melodies hold up their end of the deal enough to compensate. So the best tracks, like "Liberty Belle," ask to be sung along with and the words wouldn't make you want to blush in doing so. In fact, they're fairly intelligent and the better ones, including "Venus and Serena," a conversation between youth and elder, naturally a corrupted generation, stand out by sounding like the band's own creation.\n This band is definitely proud of itself and the delivery of the lyrics confirms this at every turn. There are more than a few stabs at American pop-culture and politics, but they come off as passionless complaints without much insight. There are plenty of targets that deserve it, but this band seems way too intelligent to rely on lyrics like: "Step into my shoes / I'll try to make you understand / I live my life without a plan / I need no guidance / Just your patience / For the shallow, the undefeated." The obvious short-sightedness comes off as arrogance after a couple tracks. At its best, the writing is affecting and charged, but at its worst it comes off sounding like one of those guys who went to college to skip half his classes to get stoned and when he showed up to class, only did so to impress everyone with some obscure nugget of political wisdom that was typically devoid of any context or original thought. \n From what at times sounds like plagiarism (check out the Mama's and the Papa's sounding "Piccolo Snare" and the Neil Young guitar ripoff of "Out of Control"), right down to the harmony vocals on "Bleed Forever" and later-Beatles album thick production, SFA don't pride themselves on sounding fresh. But that's not necessarily a bad thing either. The songs immediately sound familiar; if you've listened to pop music from 30 years ago this is fact, not probability. Phantom Power is late '60s music revisited, but it's done well when not from the pulpit. Either way, your parents should dig it.