The growing zeitgeist of our current musical landscape is that Radiohead is the new Pink Floyd (and by the looks of it, the early 2000s are the new '80s, but that's another topic). Dark and heady projects put out by Thom Yorke and Co. are fanatically eaten up by college scenes and music critics from here to Zimbabwe (and if you are reading this and "here" is Zimbabwe, just imagine a really far off place… and Radiohead is probably loved there too.). The overall whole-hearted goal of this piece of rock 'n' roll journalism is not for you, the reader, to renew your faith in the church of Yorke, because that building is already built with a solid foundation. Consider, if you will, dusting off a generous space on the shelf for one Welsh band called Super Furry Animals.

The Super Furry Animals make beautiful music for beautiful reasons, not beautiful people, and every bit as interesting as the "new Pink Floyd." Pinning the group as a rock band is apt in terms of the base instrumentation, but they have a creative flare for hip-hop/electro beats and arrangement that is constantly evolving. Their latest, Phantom Power, is one of the best releases of 2003, and is more coherent than Hail To The Thief. It's the group's sixth proper studio album, filling all possible spaces in the 5.1 universe which it consciously explores like its over-the-top predecessor, 2002's Rings Around the World.

Phantom Power, as the title suggests, explores the supernatural as well as the political, and leaves room—as all their releases do—for humor. Imagine a sinister comic book world where fuzzy guitars, harmonicas, and fantastic string arrangements make up the horizon. Whereas Rings was made with grandiose, exploding energy, Phantom Power is similar psychedelic pop, but is a bit more touching/grounded. Phantom Power touches on all the best aspects of SFA: large, sunny compositions sprinkled with electronic bursts and pedal steel guitars. It's an earthly experience with an ever-curious eye towards the sky. In short, these compositions contain some of the most satisfying harmonies, bouncing back and fourth between '60s radio and an experimental future.

In a conversation before a recent Detroit show, lead singer and primary songwriter, Gruff Rhys talked about the latest stage of Super Furry development, one that he calls their "Brown Period."

CREEM: What is a phantom power?

GR: It is a technical term. In the studio a button powers the microphones, and we became afraid of it, no one wanted to push it, like this caped ghoul filled with darkness was going to come out. It can be applied very loosely to politics, which it has to be coming from a rock band, it's like, and by the way, this is what we think. We could be blind drunk in a ditch.

CREEM: Past albums like Guerilla and Rings Around the World are all over the place, and Phantom is chilled out. You're not slowing down are you?

GR: We are in or brown period. Phantom Power is more woodland and downbeat. Radiator was bright orange, Guerilla was metallic, Rings and Phantom were more brown, (pauses to tear a bright orange piece of paper off the wall…I thought he was getting bored.) and our next EP is going to be more luminous. Our next EP will be bright!

CREEM: What can you tell me about the band's DVD projects?

GR: They are part of an evolving process, like chunks of our musical journey. In 1998 we started playing around with surround-sound, and this was influenced by club experiences and dance music of the early '90s like Orbital. In '99 we played the first surround-sound show in Cardiff.

CREEM: What about the Phantom Power DVD, it seems like there is less continuity than the first for Rings Around the World. Why? 

GR: When we made full videos for Rings Around the World, people began to apply too much emphasis on the videos. We're not filmmakers!

CREEM: I kept trying to play the whole DVD straight through and thought it was broken when I saw just one image.

GR: We are a band that uses visuals, but we want people to listen as well, (laughs) yeah, it's like 53 minutes filled with really bland images, so that people pay attention to the songs. We separated the films from the songs this time.

CREEM: You must have quite a bit of freedom as a band to produce extras like DVD projects and visuals.

GR: We try not to dwell on the mundane details of costs, we try to justify the music to ourselves, try to ask ourselves "is this good for mankind?" And if it feels right we do it. Surround sound is accessible, but can be expensive to produce many copies.

CREEM: Your albums feel like art projects, as much as they do a collection of songs, what mindsets play into the creation of a Super Furry Animal Song?

GR: Trains are great. TV is good for new vocabulary. Conversations with people, walking down the street, like… you can see a Golden Retriever while walking down the street and it can become a song. Writing about music can be hard right?

CREEM: Yeah, it can be.

GR: Have you ever tried to write something in the form of a song?

CREEM: Some songs with a friend once, not an article, would be quite a challenge!

GR: You see, I have never tried to write about music…

CREEM: Some bands can be mindful of what their fans can or can not digest. Does SFA ever step back and say, "our fans are going to hate/love this!"

GR: That's one of our problems, if we did everything that people wanted us to do, we would live in a penthouse on Lake Huron! Formula would be boring. I guess it could be seen as a weakness too, like we are confused. An audience is an audience though, not yours, and it can be patronizing to act like you own them.

CREEM: What has your experience been with U.S. audiences?

GR: We've always had a good time.

CREEM: What about U.S. radio?

GR: We are not really exposed to the radio here. I guess ignorance is bliss. We are pretty well ignored by the radio here, but we are used to it. On the tour bus, we usually have albums on.

CREEM: What about college radio? Your albums have hit No. 1 on CMJ charts.

GR: I don't know much about it; people like to use military terms like "invasion" or "cracking" when talking about Brit bands.

CREEM: Like "we are the biggest band in the world!"

GR: Yeah, that's not really one of our goals. We're not really big in Europe either, we just try to justify the music to ourselves. One of my favorite stories is the show in Frankfurt Germany where we played to six people.

CREEM: Did that discourage you, or did you rock just as hard?

GR: It was great, we went to this bargain shop next door and bought all these Christmas lights, and we played this surround sound show where we literally surrounded the audience. We played in each corner of the room.

Later that night, a crowd of more than six people (but not totally up to potential crowd-capacity) at Detroit's St. Andrews Hall was taken through an elaborate stage interpretation of a four-for-one deal. The band started the gig cloaking themselves behind curtains on the balcony for a ritual mini-DJ set, complete with bird's-eye view backdrop turntables, and everything else they want to float by the camera. Then… what you get is not only a history lesson in SFA, but nods to several musical genres.

During "Receptacle for the Respectable", a song off of Rings that turns Beatleesque pop into a metal-mash, the boys crossed axes while backdrops flashed early head-bang scenes. Another Rings song, "Run! Christian Run!" showed a majestic blend of computer blips, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, and images of falling crosses. Besides Gruff singing an entire song through a Power Ranger cadet helmet early on, the end of the show was perfection. The last song was the politically charged "Piccolo Snare" starting with sunshine harmonies, and builds into something wonderfully different.  Astro-large pop shifts into a sampler blazing techno beat, leaving a silhouetted keyboardist amongst a trippy/pulsing projection. Then, to destroy everything everyone thought they were going to do, they encored in full super-furry-costumes wielding guitars one last time. Like Sasquatches out there in the real world, they were gone before we knew what was what, frickitty-frack!

I don't even think anyone got a picture.