Guerilla was the first Super Furry Animals album I ever checked out. One time, when I was about ten or something, I was watching MTV2 when the video for ‘Do or Die’ came on. That is the second song on Guerrilla and was released as its final single. And I thought it sounded cool. That was in 2005 or something. But life happened, and it wasn’t until seven years later that I remembered the song existed. I revisited it, it sounded as good as I remembered, and I went on to listen to the rest of the album as a result. I have this headcanon that, with the new millennium fast approaching and a little uncertainty in the wind, some artists were compelled to just do some of their most out-there work in the last couple years of the ’90s to leave a mark before the world possibly ended. You check out what albums were coming out around ’98 – ’99 and you might see what I’m saying. Well, Guerrilla always gave me that kind of feeling in that, up to that point, it was certainly their most experimental effort.

On the album, you’ll get a song in the style of calypso (‘Northern Lites’), another made to be one of those novelty hits in the charts that are a little annoying but can’t help but love (‘Wherever I Lay My Phone’), a little dip into electronic, downtempo music (‘Some Things Come from Nothing’). There’s a whole lot of variety. So when ‘The Teacher’ comes along in the album’s final legs, it kind of throws you off just because, since ‘Do or Die’ many tracks earlier, the album hasn’t offered a lot of straight rock and roll, but here it is again with ‘The Teacher’ just in case you forgot that the band could still rock out from time to time. And how well they do it too. With a melody that’s sounds very much like one you’d hear in the school playground back in the day, Gruff Rhys and co take on the perspective of a teacher who wants to quit their job, run away from home and just write songs and be in a band. Until now, I thought it was from the point of view of a young student. It could still very well be both.

Now, this track is a lot of undisputable fun. Gruff Rhys starts the track off by screaming alongside the keyboard, screaming that continues underneath the song while it’s going on, and that energy is matched and never lets up as soon as the rest of the band join in for the first verse. Someone, I think Rhys himself, sings along the main melody an octave higher. There’s generally a lot of high-pitched harmonies and vocal deliveries all around, adding to the manic hyperactivity of the proceedings, which I think is summed up in the “La-la-la-la” refrains. Slotted in between the trippy ‘Door to This House Remains Open’ and the balladry of ‘Fire in My Heart’, ‘The Teacher’ continues the eclectic mixture of styles the entire album builds its ground on. It is a straight rock-n-roller, but in the context of the album it arrives as a sort of refreshing moment. I’m all for it. Listen to Guerrilla, everybody.