Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 24/03/08
Label: Parlophone

Where does a singles band go when they've lost the knack for writing singles? That's the question facing Supergrass now that "Diamond Hoo Ha" confirms what "Road To Rouen" strongly hinted, namely that a band that once leaked melody from every pore is now sweating the stale odour of pub rock. This isn't a bad record, it's just a laboured and peculiarly joyless one, all those things that Supergrass were once the opposite of.

It all looks more promising to start with. There's that bold, cartoonish title, like a long lost T Rex b-side. There's a vivid blue cover, band posed, suited and apparently ready for action. And the first song even kicks in with an utterly distinctive sound: a blunted, stripped down blues riff and a high, yowling vocal. Unfortunately, it's utterly distinctive because The White Stripes have been pedalling it since 2001, and that's the main reason "Diamond Hoo Ha" finally dies on the listener: it's smothered by its own influences.

So "345" kicks off with an (admittedly brilliant) pastiche of Lindsey Buckingham's guitar acrobatics before meandering its way towards an empty bluster of a chorus, while "When I Needed You" adds Supertramp keyboards to Fleetwood Mac guitars but fails to add anything of its own. It sounds like the muted reception to "Road To Rouen" has killed their old instincts, and their only solace is their record collections. When Gaz Coombes starts dreamily intoning "the return of inspiration" on the song of the same name, it sounds more like prayer than assertion.

They haven't lost all of their old spark. "Rebel In You" might open with a Roxy Music wall of sound and make at least three references to Bowie in the lyrics, but it has a brash likeability and the only chorus that truly sticks. And though "Ghost Of A Friend" begins as The Kinks' "Lola" before ending up as Mott The Hoople, it has a sunny optimism helped along by some rather gorgeous harmonies. Then there's "Whisky And Green Tea", which is an unholy mish-mash of metal riffs and oompah percussion, but which also sounds like the old muck-about Supergrass and almost as charming.

There's just about enough here - and only just - to suggest Supergrass may still have tunes and life left in them if they can back out of the cul de sac they're currently in. If not, the answer to where a singles band without singles go is either obscurity or the endless greatest hits tour. Either would feel like a shame for this once so promising band.

    by Jaime Gill