If anything, Welsh pop oddities Super Furry Animals sure know how to open an album. To kick off their eighth full-length album, the band immediately announce (in the bouncy and appropriately titled “The Gateway Song”) “This song is a Gateway Song/Brings us up nicely to the harder stuff/And once you get hooked/You can’t get enough.” They’re not just being boastful. It’s true — if music can be addictive, these guys have got the good stuff.

Hey Venus! may not be SFA’s best album (their 1996 debut Fuzzy Logic and 2000’s Welsh-language masterpiece Mwng are already strong contenders for that particular title), but it certainly is the most cohesively infectious set of songs they’ve put together in years. Shamelessly yet cleverly drawing from a mishmash of niche genres (most of which pre-date 1980), every track is single-worthy. From top to bottom, each cut on this relatively short album is full of punchy melody and structure — something that couldn’t necessarily be said about some of their other recent efforts, like 2001’s Rings Around the World or 2003’s Phantom Power.

This doesn’t mean that SFA have gone straight. Even through classic-sounding tracks like the aching Beach Boys homage “Run-Away” or the ’70s rock number “Into the Night,” SFA are always one or two notches left of centre on the weirdness dial, keeping the music slightly off-kilter and the lyrics continuously cheeky. That’s what separates this band from others who mine melodies of the past — everything SFA does is so steeped in artful humour and mischievous exuberance, they never come off as earnest throwbacks or faux-Californian fanboys. Funny and full of youthful energy while still being well-crafted and smart, Hey Venus! is a great of example of what this veteran and too often underappreciated band does best.