Guerrilla

Guerrilla is the third studio album by Welsh rock band Super Furry Animals. The record was released on 14 June 1999 by Creation Records and peaked at number 10 in the UK Albums Chart. Guerrilla was conceived as a commercial 'pop' album and was produced by the band themselves, as regular producer Gorwel Owen felt exhausted after a busy schedule working for other bands. Recording took place at Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire in mid-1998 with the group experimenting with a sampler for the first time and writing a number of songs in the studio. The band tried to create a 45-minute long, immediate sounding record, and therefore chose the upbeat songs from the 25 tracks which were recorded during sessions for the album. Guerrilla was chosen as the album's title as a pun on the group's name. The album features a mix of musical styles and was described as exemplifying the 'nu-psychedelia' musical genre by British music magazine the NME. Singer Gruff Rhys has stated that his lyrics are upbeat and disposable. Critical reception was generally positive with the record appearing in the "Best album of 1999" lists issued by several magazines. It was subsequently ranked at number 311 on the NME'''s list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The band were disappointed with the relative lack of success of the album's singles and went on "pop strike" as a result, issuing the 'lo-fi', all-Welsh language Mwng as the follow-up to Guerrilla in May 2000. Origins and recordingGuerrilla was deliberately conceived as a commercial-sounding 'pop' album; a "jukebox sort of album, where you listen to it and every song is different," according to singer Gruff Rhys. Rhys has said that the band felt they were waging a "sonic war" against average music and "the mainstream" with the record. The Super Furry Animals had originally intended to work on the album with Gorwel Owen, who co-produced 1996's Fuzzy Logic and 1997's Radiator with the band. According to Rhys, however, Owen felt "burned out" after producing other bands solidly for a year and a half and asked the group to wait until he had chance to rest. The Super Furry Animals were so keen to record that they decided to produce the album themselves. Guerrilla was recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire during the middle of 1998.