Gruff Rhys
Babelsberg
Release Date: Jun 8, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Rough Trade
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Babelsberg from Amazon
Album Review: Babelsberg by Gruff Rhys
Great, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
First impressions of this new solo record from Gruff Rhys - his fifth - are that it's a lofty piece of work; the title, which he noted down on the road years before knowing he'd one day come to use it, came about because he was "looking for a name that evoked the Tower of Babel - people building towers to reach an idea of heaven". 'Babelsberg' is certainly a thematically ambitious work but that isn't to say that it isn't accessible; it's a melodic and consistently playful record, even with the formidable backing of the 72-piece BBC National Orchestra of Wales making up a huge part of the instrumental palette. 'Take That Call', a track that feels like the album's cornerstone, does a great job of summing up how impressively complimentary Gruff has managed to make the work of his backing band, who work in tandem with the sheer grandiosity of the strings.
Based on rating 4
The fifth solo album by Super Furry Animals front man Gruff Rhys has been a while in the making, but it’s a textbook example of all good things being worth the wait. The majority of the songs on Babelsberg were written over two years ago, but Rhys wrote them specifically to be performed with the acclaimed composer Stephen McNeff. Being a busy man, it took a while for McNeff to find a window in his schedule.
Based on rating 8/10
Though borrowing its name from a real place in Germany, Rhys' Babelsberg has the parable of the biblical tower in the back of its mind. Foregoing a heavy moral to impart, the album's ten songs observe but aren't looking to pass judgement so much as entreat to keep your eyes open and stay positive. Rhys has an eye for detail and, as do his Super Furry Animals , a mind tuned to adventure.
Based on rating 7/10
Gruff Rhys's decades-long career has been built out of oddball musical turns — for one, having Paul McCartney's guest spot on a Super Furry Animals album consist solely of McCartney crunching carrots and celery (as Macca had done three decades earlier for the Beach Boys). But Rhys has always wrapped those conceptual quirks up in rich pop sensibilities and affecting melody, too. And so it is with Babelsberg, Rhys fifth solo album, which mines a musical and lyrical disconnect to speak to the present: backed by a trio of players, plus ….
'Babelsberg'
is available now