{grate 3.5} Enveloped by undulating swoons — oddly reminiscent of the
Beach Boys on a spacey, psychedelic trip — it’s easy to understand why the
appeal of Super Furry Animals has endured over a decade of mind-bending
invention. The nonsensical neon album cover of their eighth installment, Hey
Venus!, is alone a reflection of the Welsh beasts’ ever-burgeoning imagination.
Their latest explosion of sunshine-y doowop and bongo beats is a rainbow
spectrum of weird, as if the awe-inspiring aftermath of some LSD-incited storm.

Although the album starkly fluctuates between
tambourine-backed harmonies and sophisticated piano grunge, the tunes serve to
narrate the romance of a rural girl with big-city ambitions. “The Gateway Song”
is a 43-second crack of Brit-bubblegum, with frontman Gruff Rhys jokingly
assuring that it “brings you on nicely to the harder stuff.” Indeed, what
follows are the Motown-inspired “Run-Away” and jazzy, lo-fi “The Gift That
Keeps Giving” (a throw-back to 2000’s experimental Mwng). But we aren’t truly
blasted into electric shock until “Into the Night” turbo-charges the record
with its Turkish twanging and techno swells of keyboardist Cian Ciarán.

The only stumble in the band’s audacious strut is the
borderline-annoying and largely pointless “Baby Ate My Eightball,” which
badgers us with a stream of high-pitched la-la-las. But the elegant “Let the
Wolves Howl at the Moon” more than compensates for this forgettable slip.
“Wolves” is a hollow and blues-y waltz to the album’s close. And while its
chorus escalates: “For the end/ it comes so soon,” we are reminded that, for
every Furries finale, there awaits a new pitcher of creative juice to be
squeezed from the pop powerhouses.