Love Kraft | ||||
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Studio album by Super Furry Animals | ||||
Released | 22 August 2005 | |||
Studio | Musician studios, Figueres, Spain; Pleasure Foxxx, Cardiff; The Dairy, Brixton; Stir Studios, Cardiff | |||
Genre | Indie rock | |||
Length | 54:22 | |||
Label | Epic | |||
Producer | Mario Caldato Jr, Super Furry Animals | |||
Super Furry Animals chronology | ||||
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Singles from Love Kraft | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Aggregate scores | |
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 77/100 |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | |
The Guardian | |
Mojo | (September 2005, p.88) |
NME | |
The Observer | |
Pitchfork Media | (8.5/10) link |
PopMatters | link |
Q | (September 2005, p.116) |
Rolling Stone | link |
Stylus Magazine | (C) link |
Love Kraft is the seventh studio album by Welsh indie rock band Super Furry Animals, released on 22 August 2005 through Epic Records in the United Kingdom. The album was recorded in Spain with producer Mario Caldato Jr and was something of a departure for the band, with all members contributing songs and lead vocals alongside Gruff Rhys who had been main songwriter for the Super Furries until this point. In selecting tracks for Love Kraft a conscious effort was made by the band not to choose songs on their individual merit but rather to pick those which went well together in order to create as cohesive an album as possible. The album's name was taken from a sex shop, Love Craft, near the Cardiff offices of the Super Furries' management team and is also a nod to American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.
Critical response was generally positive with some reviews claiming the album was the best of the group's career. However, a few reviewers expressed reservations that Love Kraft was "merely a very good Super Furry Animals effort" and was not as impressive as the band's previous records. The track "Lazer Beam" was released as a single and reached #28 in the UK Singles Chart.
Love Kraft was recorded in Figueres, a small city in Catalonia, Spain. According to Rhys the band found themselves in the "unusual" position of recording their seventh album together and began looking at groups who had made lots of records, such as Fleetwood Mac and The Beach Boys. These bands had made "foreign records" (Tusk and Holland respectively) so the Super Furries decided to do the same although on "a much tighter budget." Leaving their usual Cardiff studio behind had an effect on the songs according to Rhys: