GRUFF RHYS - SADNESS SETS ME FREE

Released: 26/01/24

The inimitable ex-Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys barely seems to have taken a break since that band burst onto the scene in 1996 with the singular weirdo-psych of Fuzzy Logic. Incredibly, new solo LP Sadness Sets Me Free is the 25th album the Cardiffian has released in his 35-year career – individually, collaboratively, and as a member of the aforementioned and various other bands – and delivers on yet more of the same brilliant, soaring-strings-based classic pop of predecessor Seeking new Gods, his first solo top ten record. 

Where SFA’s influences skewed towards Marc Bolan and Syd Barrett, Rhys’s work has tended to take an emotionally richer, more heart-felt turn, invoking the peak solo work of John Lennon (such as Double Fantasy), as with Sadness Sets Me Free’s excellent lead single, ‘Celestial Candyfloss’; but this is not to say that there aren’t ample flashes of devilish humour – this is one fo the men behind ‘Hangin’ With Howard Marks’, after all  – it’s just a little bit more subtle and debonair, and as such the album also finds kinship with Sebastian Tellier’s best work on Politics (2004). Lovely stuff.