Praxis Makes Perfect

Each of these 10 songs is a piece in the Feltrinelli puzzle, resulting in an album whose ambition suitably matches its subject’s big ideas.

The appeal of the album lies in its musicianship and perfect production.

This is a wonderfully entertaining collection of pop songs that just happen to be well-versed in history and political and economic theories.

Praxis Makes Perfect only suffers in comparison to its predecessor in that it lacks a clear standout track in the same vein as Stainless Style’s ‘I Told Her On Alderaan’, but it works better as a cohesive record.

What stops the record being preposterous, what keeps it charming and fun throughout, what makes it okay for ‘Mid Century Modern Nightmare’ to rhyme “bourgeoisie” with “cups of tea” is the presence of Gruff.

Praxis achieves the tricky balancing act between playful and poignant. [May 2013, p.90]

Concise at just 30 minutes, perhaps explaining why "the concept" is not fully realised, but it's still unlikely you'll hear a better anti-fascist-Marxist-electro-pop record all year. [May 2013, p.106]

Instrumentally, the record has all the hallmarks of Super Furry Animals meeting Boom Bip--Rhodes and Wurlitzer, squelchy analogue synths, guitars and keyboards, metronomically tight live drums, Rhys’ brilliantly Welsh-accented American falsetto. Musically and lyrically it also possesses all of the keen humour of the former, modest and understated to a tee.

When it's good it's great, and it's never bad; Gruff Rhys' lyrics are mostly thoughtful and tastefully poetic throughout, but Feltrinelli's complex tale perhaps needed to be fleshed out further, with more twists and turns and the peaks more evenly placed.

The record alone makes for the latest solid effort from these two outsize talents, but the stage show ought to be the ideal way to enjoy it

Ultimately the confusion and convolution is all part of the charm on this adventure into a world of history and imagination. It doesn't hit the peaks of 'Stainless Style', but is still a record worth investing time in.

Lacking both the complexity of the Super Furry Animals' playful psychedelia or the intimate warmth of Rhys’ solo work, it’s nevertheless an appealing curio and trailblazer in the small sphere of biographical concept albums.

Side project, collaboration or fully fledged act, Neon Neon have a Mercury nomination under their belts--and now a follow-up LP that, for better or worse, peddles the same worthy wares.

What Praxis Makes Perfect might lack in fresh musical directions--their percolating analogue-digital pop remains little altered--it makes up for in apposite italophile detail.

Sadly, the decision to tell Feltrinelli's story in the same period technopop music as Stainless Style sabotages its impact.

This time their subject is the Italian publisher and leftwing activist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, and that satisfying feeling of sound enhancing story is missing. What you get instead are some ridiculously buoyant tunes advocating social justice.

Some nice wordplay and a sultry cameo from Asia Argento ensure that Praxis Makes Perfect is fun, if musically flimsy. [May 2013, p.75]

While Praxis Makes Perfect does boast some terrific, shimmering, moments, it simultaneously puts hurdles in the way of an easy listen, especially towards the end where it all gets a bit... well, dull.

In the end, Praxis Makes Perfect is an uneven mix of gleaming ’80s homages and tunes burdened by their own ambition.