Named best new band by NME

In 1999, NME readers named them ‘best new band’ in January (this despite the fact it was now three years since they released their debut album). In May, the single ” Northern Lites ” was released and made No. 11 in the charts. A dense production, with steel drums clattering out a calypso rhythm whilst Rhys sang an irreverent lyric about the El Niño-Southern Oscillation weather phenomenon, it was an apt taster for the new album, Guerrilla . Recorded at the Real World Studios, the album retained SFA’s pop melodies but took a less guitar-centric approach to their execution and was their most experimental work to date. Layers of samples over brass , percussion and Gruff’s melodic singing produced an album which took the freewheeling approach of 1960s groups such as The Beatles , The Beach Boys and The Velvet Underground and updated it to the late 1990s. The album swung from glam and garage rock numbers (“Night Vision”, “The Teacher”) to novelty techno (“Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home)”), ambient indietronica (“Some Things Come From Nothing”) and upbeat drum and bass (“The Door To This House Remains Open”). For the cover art, Pete Fowler created the band’s first three-dimensional models, rather than the paintings he had supplied for the Radiator album and singles.