From
its beginning as the bratty little brother of the Britpop moment, Supergrass
never looked built to last. But as Blur edged toward abstraction and Oasis got
better only at repeating itself, Supergrass has carried on reasonably well. The
band's 2005 album, Road To Rouen, sounded like a grab at artistic maturity—it lacked
tunes, in other words—but Diamond Hoo Ha dispenses with any such
pretensions. If the title weren't indication enough that this was a
back-to-basics effort, an opening riff that playfully rips off Led Zeppelin's
"Moby Dick" seals the deal.
It
works, too. Supergrass sounds loose and inspired throughout, turning that Zep
goof into a catchy throwback to early singles like "Caught By The Fuzz," then
building an explosive chorus using raw materials borrowed from Idiot-era Iggy Pop on "Bad Blood." "The
Return Of…" finds Gaz Coombes singing about "the return of inspiration," and
it's easy to conclude that he means his band. Sometimes inspiration just means
reminding yourself what made you love what you do in the first place.