Super Furry Animals

Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band formed in Cardiff in 1993. For the duration of their professional career, the band consisted of Gruff Rhys (lead vocals, guitar), Huw Bunford (lead guitar, vocals), Guto Pryce (bass guitar), Cian Ciaran (keyboards, synthesisers, various electronics, occasional guitar, vocals), and Dafydd Ieuan (drums, vocals). An earlier incarnation of the band featured actor Rhys Ifans on lead vocals. The band are considered to be part of the renaissance of Welsh culture which emerged in the 1990s: other Welsh bands of the time include the Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Catatonia and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. Super Furry Animals have recorded nine UK Albums Chart Top 25 studio albums (one BPI certified Gold and four certified Silver), plus numerous singles, EPs, compilations and collaborations. The band were known as central to the Cool Cymru era during which they were dominant, and are the act with the most top 40 hits without reaching the UK Singles Chart Top 10. Over the course of nine albums, Super Furry Animals has been described as "one of the most imaginative bands of our time" by Billboard, while according to a 2005 article in NME, "There's a case to be argued that [Super Furry Animals] were the most important band of the past 15 years".