REVIEW: Gruff Rhys—American Interior (Deluxe, 2025)

Expanded and resequenced 3LP edition of the 2014 solo album—but was that really necessary?

Of his eight main solo albums, American Interior appears to be the one Gruff Rhys really went all-in on. Having toured the record multiple times, complete with engagingly daft powerpoint presentation, placards and puppet, it has been transformed from its original 1LP 13-song form, into an 81 minute, 3LP, 23 track opus. Did it really warrant that, though?

Cards on the table time, I thought the previous album, 2012’s Hotel Shampoo, was his solo masterpiece, with some of his best-ever songs, among a glorious suite of supreme album tracks. If you’ve never checked it out, definitely do. It’s a stunner.

Following on from that high water mark, the American Interior concept album was certainly really good, with some similarly brilliant highlights, but the very nature of having to turn out songs that fit the premise meant it sagged a little in places, with songs have that written-to-order feel about them. Adding another 10 tracks to the album (four of which featured on the previous limited edition boxset, that embellished the album via three 12” vinyl EPs, one song of which was unreleased until now) is mostly overkill. One for the completist, then (hi!).

First the essentials: title track American Interior remains one of his most enduring numbers, and is the hook to hang the whole project on. Beyond that, the likes of Liberty (Is Where I’ll Be) and Sugar Insides are contenders for any best-of Gruff playlist. I’m also quite fond of the soaring The Last Conquistador once it gets past that tinny synth intro.

We also get treated to some quality dark horses, like The Swamp and Year Of The Dog. Though by no means upbeat bangers, both work in the same way as a lot of the more yearning Super Furry Animals songs did so well. So that’s 5 or 6 top-notch tunes already.

But, for my money, it suffered from a serious case of filleritis. Lost Tribes, Allweddellau Allweddol, the jaunty The Whether (Or Not), I-O-I-O, inessential outro Tiger’s Tale and the fun-but-also-irritating 100 Unread Messages made it an uneven listen by his exceptionally high standards.

Maybe mindful of this, Gruff has performed an uncharacteristic bit of revisionism on the reissue, and has moved songs around, and added songs that were previously only on the b-sides of the three mail-order only 12” singles into the running order.

This isn’t simply a deluxe version thing, either. The standard (2LP) album now also bolts five songs into the mix, boosting it from the original 13 tracks to 18. They don’t make a big deal out of this anywhere on the sleeve, but this accounts for why it has so many more songs than the original 2014 release.

The decision to resequence the album isn’t simply a means to ensure better sound quality on the vinyl—it has been replicated on the digital stream also. So now we find former b-sides like the toe-tapper That’s Why popping up in the middle of the record—a good decision, as it’s one of the better songs in the whole collection. Same deal with the delightful instrumental Media Quake, like a lost late 60s Beach Boys number.

The five ‘bonus’ cuts (on the deluxe vinyl, but also on the stream as a “disc 2”) are little more than completist fluff, though, unless you’re really desperate for Welsh language versions of Lost Tribes and American Interior, and two total throwaways in the shape of Power Point Presentation and American Exterior-Extended For Two Synthesizers—a seven minute bleepy-bloopy waste of vinyl, if I’m being completely honest. It’s just as well the overall packaging is so good, with its tri-fold cover, and different coloured vinyl adding a nicely premium touch to it. But if you’re wondering which vinyl version to buy, you’re not missing much by opting for the much cheaper double vinyl one.

There is one saving grace on the bonus disk, though, in the shape of previously unreleased Welsh language cut, Y Madogwys Neu Angau (translation: The Education Or Death), which is one of the strongest songs on the whole thing, and therefore a puzzle as to why it was left off in the first place. Maybe he had plans for it that didn’t come to fruition, who knows.

If you were to craft your own playlist from these 23 songs, you could make a case for eight of them being really strong, and add a couple more to bolster it to a standard 10-track album length (including, say, Clychdro Amser and Y Madogwys Neu Angau). But 23? Even as a true Gruff Rhys/SFA diehard, that’s a hefty banquet. This happens sometimes. An established artist insists on delivering the full no-compromises vision, even though it works against its overall quality. So now we have all the songs from the session, you get the full picture, but also a reminder that quality control is important. Less is more, as they say.