If the ability to consistently create envelope-pushing and highly enjoyable albums is an indication of a band’s quality, the Super Furry Animals have been better than the Beatles for years – and the group’s dynamic, kooky and frenetic live performances have traditionally been an affirmation of such hyperbole. This was not the case at the band’s show at the Roxy Monday night.
Super Furry Animals’ new album Love Kraft consists of cosmopolitan and largely engaging compositions, but it certainly represents the culmination of a “maturation” arc on the part of the group. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a live setting. Unfortunately, with the exception of “Zoom”‘s apocalyptic croon and the energetic first single “Lazer Beam,” the new tunes don’t jibe with live treatments at all, coming off gormless and listless.
Worse still, that listlessness seemed to color some of the Furries’ more canonized material, dulling the impact of such classics as “Do Or Die,” “Juxtaposed With U” and “Hello Sunshine.” Luckily, toward the end of the night and in a lengthy encore, the band managed to belatedly kick into high gear, giving “Receptacle for the Respectable” and ageless high-water mark “The Man Don’t Give A F*ck” impassioned treatments.
Openers Caribou (formerly Manitoba) delivered a more consistently high-energy show than the headliners. Interpreting material from the Up In Flames and Milk of Human Kindness full-lengths, the group used a two-drum setup to propel Dan Snaith’s organic-IDM compositions to a sweaty stratosphere they see only intermittently on record. m
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