Toronto - Following the massive success of the Ben Gibbar/Dntel collaboration known as “The Postal Service”, one would have expected many lead singers to do a solo project with some random dj person and see if they can strike gold as well. Aside from the Gorillaz, there hasn’t really been anything that stands out. Enter Gruff Rhys, lead singer of Welsh band Super Furry Animals. Gruff already branched out from his band with the English solo effort “Candylion” last year. This year, brings Gruff’s experiment with DJ/Producer Boom Bip, a group entitled “Neon Neon”. They released an album in March of this year.
So why the long delay between the album release and this post? Well, when my friend gave me this cd, I looked at the band name “Neon Neon” and automatically dismissed it as some sort of New York electroclash outfit. I was like “man, not really feeling that type of this music at this moment” and forgot about it. Given the volume of music that comes out every day, this cd got put on the back burner til one day, when the sun was shining, I noticed it sitting at the corner of my desk and I was like ‘hot damn, I was sposda listen to this’. So I did.
What do I make of it? It’s pretty good. It’s definitely not a Super Furry Animals album thats for sure, and it shows Gruffs more eclectic tastes. His penchant for fun lyrics are still there (”I Told Her On Alderaan”, “Michael Douglas”) and teaming up with a person like Boom Bip allowed the group to collaborate with hip hop stalwarts like Spank Rock, Fat Lip and Yo Majesty. The results is a cd that provides a good blend of SFAism with some good beats. What? I don’t know what I just wrote either, but it sounded somewhat fancy. Take it for what it is and go listen to this cd and hand out some free candy.
This post has no comment.