Tracks

Gruff Rhys: "Slashed Wrists for Christmas"

(2011)

By Jonathan Wroble | 24 November 2011

Perhaps the thing which Gruff Rhys takes most seriously is his sense of humor. Through fifteen years fronting the Super Furry Animals and five recording solo, the one constant in the shaggy Welshman’s output—which has incorporated zany techno, folksy balladry, plastic soul, garage punk, even a Country-Western lilt dedicated to programming robots—has been his cartoonish wit. The man is as comfortable delivering puns in his second language (“They say the future of cement is set in stone,” goes a line from 2009’s “Inaugural Trams”) as he is writing lyrical dialogue between himself and a pet hamster. He wanted to name SFA’s last LP The Very Best of Neil Diamond to trick consumers and inflate sales. The news and events section of his website is titled “The Gruffington Post.” Even at 41, Rhys quite clearly has all the prankster energy of a neighborhood menace.

This is why “Slashed Wrists this Christmas,” a despondent ode to being outright miserable through the winter season, makes utmost sense in the Rhys oeuvre. Released as one of the three tracks on his upcoming Atheist Xmas EP (which depicts a flaming Molotov cocktail for its cover art) the song drearily narrates a Yuletide suicide attempt, deadpanned by Rhys in tones equally conversational and confessional. “It was 1987 / You’d just been diagnosed with manic depression,” he sings with dwindled irony; “You said, ‘Next time I do it, I’m gonna do it well’ / And I just told you to go to hell.” If not exactly material for the universal caroler’s canon, at least Rhys has recorded the first holiday song to effectively rhyme “Christmas” with “listless.”

As for production values, things are kept relatively simple, with none of the ornate horns and bells that will bleed through mall speakers from now until everything’s bought up. Much of the track hinges on a waltzing ringworm of a piano line that remains monotonous save a mess of Bowie-esque bass clef flourishes; the song’s soul, if one could call it that, derives from a feisty B3 organ that flirts with the empty space between Rhys’ phrases. At nearly six minutes and based entirely on one chord progression, it seems that “Wrists” could have easily becomes a bluesy, romping sing-along, full of instrumental chatter and wild vocal improvisation—but Rhys resists the urge, however begrudgingly. Instead, the song sits well within the realm of the singer-songwriter, never quite working into the groove it suggests; even the bedside harmonies near its end are stifled, heartbroken, and awkward.

The funniest thing about “Wrists,” then, is that it’s not actually that funny. Rhys, for those who esteem his reputation, has concocted a brilliant song title and an alluring album concept, but here he has rendered a straightforward and laboriously somber piece—less an anthem for those who cringe at commercialized holiday paraphernalia than an emotionally-detached retelling of a dismal event. That might just be his silent little hoax, though: to draw us in with the endless imaginings of just how eccentrically he might approach this particular subject, only to deliver something that sounds like an excerpt from the post-clinical Leonard Cohen Christmas special. In any case, Rhys’ wit this time around—like the season in which he positions this ballad—is exceedingly dry.

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