The ex-Super Furry Animals singer’s orchestral folk pop is as elegant as valuable furniture.
A deception right from the start: Given the wailing pedal steel guitar in the title track, could this be Gruff Rhys’ first country album? No, all pedal steel guitar haters can rest easy, because in the second song “Bad Friend” he ditched the irritating instrument.
It would have been too easy, because the ex-Super Furry Animals singer was on the road a lot for SADNESS SETS ME FREE: First he recorded the basic structure of the album with his regular band in just three days, then he played strings and brass with one BBC Orchestra quartet in Cardiff, This Is The Kit singer Kate Stables breathed the lovely, Prefab Sprout-esque background vocals into the construct, it was mastered in Paris and finally mixed in Marseille.
So this time it’s not a conceptual framework, it’s more about the joy of crafting. And although it gives the impression that the album is screwed together, Rhys manages to give the songs the simple elegance of a valuable old piece of furniture. Despite all its lushness, his surprisingly light-footed folk pop washes around you like a warm breeze. And in the background there are string pads that you can relax into. Rhys doesn’t manage to create a song as big as “Mausoleum Of My Former Self”, but he does create a lot of little listening pleasures full of endearing details.
Author: Michael Prenner