Guerrilla by Super Furry Animals

Guerrilla, Super Furry Animals' third album, came out on Creation in June 1999, and it was meant as their commercial pop record, which in Furries terms still meant something gloriously odd. With regular producer Gorwel Owen worn out from other jobs, the band produced it themselves at Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire in mid-1998, writing songs on the spot and playing with a sampler for the first time. The title, naturally, is a pun on their own name.

From 25 songs they picked the upbeat ones and cut the running time to around 45 minutes, and it's a sugar rush of styles: Gruff Rhys singing optimistic, deliberately throwaway words about the telecom age, Cian Ciaran's electronics fizzing, Huw Bunford, Guto Pryce and Dafydd Ieuan veering from one genre to the next without ever losing the tune. "Northern Lites" and "Fire In My Heart" are the gems. It landed on several best-of-1999 lists, but the singles underperformed, Creation folded, and a frustrated band went on pop strike with the all-Welsh Mwng.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.