Dark Days/Light Years Explained

Dark Days/Light Years
Type:studio
Artist:Super Furry Animals
Cover:DarkDaysLightYears.jpg
Released:16 March 2009
Recorded:2007–2009, Faster Recording Studio, Cardiff
Genre:Alternative rock, experimental rock
Length:59:54
Label:Rough Trade
Producer:Chris Shaw, Super Furry Animals
Prev Title:Hey Venus!
Prev Year:2007
Next Title:Zoom! The Best of 1995–2016
Next Year:2016

Dark Days/Light Years is the ninth studio album by Super Furry Animals, released digitally on 16 March 2009 via the band's website, with a physical release following on 21 April on Rough Trade Records.[1] The album's title is taken from a lyric in the song "Moped Eyes" ("dark days seem light years away").

Many of the songs on the album are based on riffs and grooves the band had been working on for several years. The band originally planned to record the album in Miraval, France like their previous effort Hey Venus!, but decided to record in Cardiff with a considerably lower budget than previous efforts.

The completion of the album was documented by a series of 22 short films that were shown on the Super Furry Animals website, with one film added each day leading up to its original digital release. The videos were inspired by the Mike Figgis film Timecode and were described by The Guardian as "at once enormously dull, pleasingly insightful and curiously compelling."[2] [3]

Longtime sleeve designer Pete Fowler collaborated with Hey Venus! artist Keiichi Tanaami to produce the album's artwork. According to Rhys, Tanaami wanted to work with the band having seen Fowler's previous Super Furry Animals record sleeves.[4] The track "Inaugural Trams" includes spoken word German vocals by Franz Ferdinand's Nick McCarthy.[5] The song impacted radio on April 21, 2009.[6] The band broadcast a live show on their own website (superfurry.com) featuring songs from the album on the day of its digital release, which proved a success despite initial technical glitches.[7] They didn't tour the album in a conventional manner, gigging infrequently.[8]

The 12" vinyl release features different artwork from the CD version, and also has a free copy of the album on CD slipped inside the sleeve. The album peaked at #23 in the UK Album Charts in its first week of physical release. It may have charted higher but the band sold a number of pre-order copies and digital downloads via their website, which is not a registered chart company.

At just over an hour, it is the band's longest album.

To promote the album, lead singer Gruff Rhys described it as having a "biblical sound," and said that the band wouldn't be able to play any of its songs indoors.[9]

Lyrical themes

Singer and chief lyric writer Gruff Rhys has claimed that "The Very Best Of Neil Diamond" is about how you can't choose the soundtrack to your life" while "Inaugural Trams" is "a celebratory anthem regarding the opening of a new tram line in a fictitious utopian mainland Europe town".[10] [11] The current economic downturn is referenced briefly in songs such as "Inaugural Trams" and "Inconvenience". Rhys has described the writing process as "very collaborative".[12]

Musical style

According to Rhys the band made a "conscious decision really was not to include the slow numbers" on Dark Days/Light Years going on to state that "There are not a whole lot of chords in these songs; they're not as song-based in the conventional song writing. They've been developed out of band jams, but it turned out sounding like songs pretty much anyway".[12]

Critical reception

Dark Days/Light Years received generally positive reviews, with Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, giving the album a score of 84 denoting "universal acclaim".

Personnel

The following people contributed to Dark Days/Light Years:[13]

Band

Additional musicians

Recording personnel

Artwork

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Super Furry Animals reveal new album title. NME. 2009-01-29. 2009-01-30.
  2. News: Salmon. Chris. Feeding time at the studio. The Guardian. 2009-02-27. 2010-04-26 . London.
  3. Web site: It's the Super Filmy Animals. The Guardian. 2009-02-25. 2010-04-26.
  4. News: Usborne. Simon. How We Met: Pete Fowler & Gruff Rhys. The Independent. 2009-04-12. 2010-04-26 . London.
  5. Web site: Franz Ferdinand collaborate with Super Furry Animals. NME. 2009-04-04. 2009-04-06.
  6. Web site: AllAccess.com Alternative eWeekly. AllAccess. April 14, 2009. July 2, 2016.
  7. Web site: Live Review - Super Furry Animals online gig . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090321180953/http://www.culturedeluxe.com/news_item.asp?id=5647 . 2009-03-21 .
  8. Web site: Diver. Mike. Super Furry Animals interview. Clash. 2009-04-28. 2009-12-08.
  9. News: Super Furry Animals plot 'incredible' return . BBC News . 2009-04-08 . 2010-05-01 . Tom . Pinnock.
  10. News: Richards. Sam. Super Furry Animals are happily home to a hwyl in the wall. The Times. 2009-03-20. 2009-12-14 . London.
  11. Web site: Porter. Tom. Super Furry Animals' new album track-by-track guide. MusicRadar. 2009-01-30. 2009-12-14.
  12. Web site: Gunasekaran. Divya. Super Furry Animals: Interview With Gruff Rhys: Day For Night. The Aquarian Weekly. 2009-08-31. 2010-04-26.
  13. Hey Venus! . Hey Venus! . . 2007 . 8 . CD booklet . . .
  14. 50 best albums. Uncut. 152. 60. January 2010.