With their first album in over three years, Supergrass punch through the veil of creative dormancy with one of the best efforts of their career. Coming in with precious sheen and rock glitz from front cover to closing track, Diamond Hoo Ha is like an animalistic romp if ever there was one—certainly a spin up, up, and away from the somber Road To Rouen.
The eleven tracks, coming in at forty minutes, feel structurally similar to others by the Oxford foursome. Only now, after all this time, their sound comes across as more mature, as a more assured breed of power pop. Supergrass are a band who know not only their influences, but those they’ve influenced in sum. They bring that Stooges gloom/punk tone on “Bad Blood” at the same time as some of the White Stripes boomtown swagger, evident in “Diamond Hoo Ha Man.” At no time does it feel all over the map. If anything, Diamond Hoo Ha comes across as a multi-generational affair and a carefully constructed record. But that’s not to say it isn’t a fun listen. There is enough sprightly spring and humor in “Rebel In You” and “Whiskey & Green Tea” to keep any attempt at heft afloat—and enough to perhaps look favorably on the moments that tempt pop cliché.
Toward the end, Diamond Hoo Ha loses some of the steam it works so hard to build, and by the last track, the returns tend to diminish. No matter; some of the signature whimsy is back. While the band no longer feels like the strutting pen of roosters they were in the early '90s as they basked in Britpop fame, there is a fair amount of cock-a-doodle-doo in them.
|