Supergrass: Diamond Hoo Ha

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.