Photo courtesy of Matador Records Welsh band Super Furry Animals makes a stop in Phoenix in support of its latest release, Phantom Power.

Dafydd Ieuan is hurting.The Welsh drummer for Brit band Super Furry Animal had a long night before the Wildcat's scheduled August interview and is paying for it.

"I've got a blinding hangover today," Ieuan said. "It was my girlfriend's birthday yesterday. We're both very, very fragile today. Thinking about drinking pints makes me want to wretch."

The 34-year-old is speaking from Britain about the band's new album Phantom Power, their joint U.S. tour with California band Grandaddy, current events, and the pressing issues they've been tending to in the mean time.

"Making the album a lot of the time," he said. "Couple tours of the States. Drinking some pints at my house. Buying sofas. The usual things."

Things weren't so usual on the recording of Phantom as the band members decided to produce the album themselves. The result was a more straightforward rock-sounding album than 2001's production-glossed Rings Around The World.

"The last one sounded more polished because the guy who was engineering and co-producing, that was mostly his work," Ieuan said. "That's his style, really. We did keep bits of that but it needed to be a bit more immediate and a bit more raw, not as polished."

From a critical standpoint, the decision to self-produce paid off. Worldwide high-profile music magazines like Spin (Grade: A) and the British NME (Rating 9/10) have given the Furries equally high marks.

"It's nice being complimented," he said. "But if you're going to believe a good review then you've got to believe the bad ones. They're just as valid, I suppose. You can't get too involved in it or you'll drive yourself mad."

Also getting high scores for their new album, Sumday, has been current tour-mates Grandaddy. Although friends for years, Ieuan said it was coincidence that the co-touring band released albums around the same time.

Another twist of fate is that both bands have sounds that would make for good headphone music in a space shuttle, bringing melodies and ideas out into the nether regions of consciousness.

"We definitely have similar attitudes, maybe a certain amount of the same record collection as well," he said of the comparisons. "I think we're both going to put on visual shows as well."

One such visual display is watching shaggy-haired Yetis the size of grown men complete a Furries set. It still remains to be seen, however, if the Yetis will make it across the pond.

"It depends on if we can get them through quarantine," he said. "They'll have like rabies or something by September. I think the Yetis will come with us, yeah. They tend to pop up every now and then and do a few ditties or something like that ÷ like Yetis do. Yetis are excellent. They speak Welsh as well. They're amazing."

Whether the Yetis hit the road or not, Ieuan is fully excited about touring America again and seeing the daily landscape that most Tucsonans take for granted.

"It's really exciting us, seeing the desert," he said. "We've never seen a desert before."

This burst of anticipation comes after a brief discussion on how the rest of the world, Britain in particular, views America and its citizens in light of so much recent conflict ÷ the Furries have been known to add political content in their songs.

"Most of the people I know including myself haven't got a lot of nice things to say about Bush," he said. "But that doesn't translate to the whole American nation, you know? I happen to think Tony Blair's a cunt, but it ain't all the British people, you know what I mean?"

He added that a government must be viewed separate from its people.

"People saying, ÎOh, I didn't vote for Bush, it's not my opinion,'" he said. "We realize that. I've got nothing against Americans, you know what I mean? There's just a lot of shit going on. He's not doing you lot any good. But personally, I don't judge the whole country by acts of their president, you know what I mean?"

After he surveyed the current state of the globe, coupled with the aching state of his formally alcohol-flushed body, Ieuan made another statement.

"God I feel ill," he said.

He and the band have more thumping headaches ahead of them, as he described what he the rest of the year holds.

"Goodbye life and hello hemorrhoids," he said. "It's just going to bring hemorrhoids and a shriveled liver. Back on the road · God, it's so healthy."

The Super Furry Animals and Grandaddy play The Marquee Theatre in Tempe Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $11.75 through Ticketmaster.