I recently came into possession of the first issue of George Meyer’s Army Man zine, which was at the time of its first appearance in the late 1980s America’s only magazine. Here’s the first of a series of excerpts.

Why I Love America

Why do I love America? Well, maybe “love” is a little strong … I mean, I think it’s a good country. Definitely. But a lot of that is ’cause I was born here, and haven’t seen that many other countries. Canada and Mexico, that’s about it. I hear Sweden is really great. Man, I’d move there in a second. Just don’t have the bucks.

Google sightseeing

I’ve just watched Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing for the second time, and I found it just as powerful and even more impressive than I did the first time, which must have been more than ten years ago. It’s a superb film, but what I found most striking about it was the realisation that Spike Lee makes great love scenes. Okay, not love scenes, sex scenes. In Do the Right Thing it’s Mookie rubbing Tina all over with ice cubes on the hottest day of the year, intoning, “Thank God for lips … thank God for kneecaps … thank God for the right nipple” and so on. In She’s Gotta Have It, there were a few to choose from, but again the best was the one featuring Spike himself, this time as Mars. I think the secret is that both Mookie and Mars are jokers, and in both scenes they and their respective partners are basically fooling around and enjoying themselves. Usually in Hollywood sex scenes the actors look like they’re struggling to keep a straight face, which in fact they probably are. Spike Lee’s sex scenes are more fun and more relaxed, which is why they stick in the mind longer. That and the generous nipple coverage.

Speaking as a Londoner, I have to say that we could do with more of this kind of terrorist attack - from the kind of guy who looks “extremely dismayed” when his backpack explodes, then runs around with wires poking out of his top. It would have been even better if any of the four had been arrested or even just severely beaten, but I’m sure that will happen in time.

I thought the first episode of the new Ricky Gervais’s / Stephen Merchant series Extras, was pretty good, but what really made it enjoyable for me was the reaction of these bitter, joyless pedants …

My heart sank when I heard the Super Furry Animals describe their forthcoming album in a recent interview as “sludge rock”. There’s been a noticeable trend in their output towards slower, heavier material, with both Rings Around the World and Phantom Power rarely getting above strolling pace. It didn’t matter so much because both of them were full of inspired songs, but inspiration can run out, especially in a time of contentment. And Love Kraft sounds like a record of contentment more than anything.

Not that this is such a bad thing. After the gloom and anxiety of Phantom Power, the Furries could probably do with kicking back and enjoying the simple things. They certainly sound a bit happier - Bunf’s “The Horn” and “Back on a roll” are endearingly raggedy odes to shrugging off cares, a world away from his bleak “Sex, Drugs and Robots” on Phantom Power. But where these tunes silde by pleasantly, that song grabbed the listener with its enigmatic lyrics, sad delivery and hypnotic melody. The lack of urgency or edge is taken to extremes in drummer Daf’s “Atomik Lust”, which is as wistful and relaxed as a stroll on a country road on a late summer evening, and just as dull.

You mighth have noticed that songwriting duties are shared around much more on this album, with Gruff Rhys taking a bit more of a back seat. He still provides some of Love Kraft’s better songs, but for me right now the highlight is Cian’s “Walk You Home”, a gorgeous piano ballad that makes a genuine emotional impact. The next most immediately impressive tune is Gruff’s “Ohio Heat”, which puts to a fantastic melody an apparently complicated tale of unexpected pregnancy in the American mid-West. Or at least that’s what it sounds like - I don’t know if it’s due to mine being a pre-release version, but half the time it’s very hard to tell what’s going on in these songs. The first single of the album, Lazer Beam, sounds like it has something to do with escaping Earth in an alien craft, but with the chorus drowned under layers of sound it’s impossible to tell whether Gruff thinks this would be a good idea or not.

It’s a problem which crops up elsewhere. The first track, Zoom!, feels like death by producer, transformed by bells, whistles and competing choirs into an epic extravaganza about … well, you tell me, because I haven’t a clue. Like another epic track, Frequency, Zoom is drenched in effects and goes on way too long. Which is not to say that they’re bad, just that the Furries used to cram several great ideas into each short song, while now it’s more like they’re stretching out a single good one to breaking point.

The album’s end sums up my mixed feelings. The penultimate track, Cloudberries, is a beautiful, multi-part tune with a lovely lyric and deft rhythmic changes. Fantastic. That’s followed by “Cabin Fever”, which feature’s Daf’s attractive crooning but little else, and takes six minutes to make hardly any impression at all. Not fantastic. It’s not just an anti-climax, it’s an absolutely depressing way to end, and makes Love Kraft feel worse than it is.

Overall, it’s not a bad album, it’s just SFA’s worst. But if you don’t like it, give Gruff’s solo “Yr Atal Genhedlaeth” from earlier this year a go. It’s pretty much the polar opposite of Love Kraft - short, punky, and never dull.