REVIEW: Supergrass, Supergrass (Island)
- Tim Kennedy
Supergrass started out almost posing as the 90s answer to the Monkees with absurdly upbeat tunes which wooed the British Indie guitar public. Two albums on and they have established themselves as a popular live band and a reputation for great musicianship in the studio.
Though a guitar band, they often turn to Madness-style ska beats to liven things up. This only adds to their cartoonesque image which is already compounded by their bizarre simian appearance and long sideburns. The previous album -- In It For The Money -- was a classic of the decade, a masterpiece combining both moody magnificence and ecstatic good times. This album also combines contrasting colours.
"Moving" begins with dramatically strummed open chords on acoustic, conveying desperation and longing. The verse has a familiar Supergrass ska-like piano backing but in a minor key, to the lyric 'I got a low low feeling inside me'. But no matter the somewhat hangdog lyrics, the guitar is magical - the opening strummed section is echoed in the 12-string electric solo which features some superb note-bending even recalling moments from The Byrds's Younger Than Yesterday from '67. This song picks up where the band left off on their second album In It For The Money, using the guitar to convey a questioning and unsettled emotional state to superb effect.
"Your Love" has an insistent piano/guitar riff and fast pace that leads into a furious chorus but the bridge is really good, something akin to a track off Rubber Soul by the Beatles. The rest of the song fails to get off the ground though insistent -- it tends to fasten itself in the subconscious.
"What Went Wrong (In Your Head)" features some aimless la-la-las which imply lack of ideas for lyrics. We never know much more than the stated question. This is another song which doesn't gain much ground despite its energetic riffing, the chorus is a Slade type of thing but without the catchiness. It ends with acapella harmonising but fails to convince.
"Beautiful People" is built around another insistent piano riff like many of Supergrass' songs. It works better than the preceding two songs because it has a half decent tune, despite the repetitiveness that irked in "Your Love", and "What Went Wrong".
"Shotover Hill" starts with backmasking and launches into acoustic guitars and bass bombastic drum. The chorus features some nice chiming guitar akin to "I Want You" by the Beatles. This is one of the better songs on the album, more easygoing, by leaving out those irksome choppy rhythms it allows the guitars to exploit the space.
"Eon" is an instrumental number in the vein of the second album once again, with a repeated descending sustained twin sequence of guitar notes building in intensity. The result is once again to convey a mood of expectation to the listener, and perhaps a feeling of frustration. This is one of the standout tracks on the album despite being instrumental -- showing that the importance of Supergrass lies in their love of and mastery over the guitar. The lyrics are of little significance on this album anyway -- maybe even perfunctory.
"Mary" is more ordinary with a jokey lyric that doesn't seem to go anywhere apart saying from how 'extraordinary' she is. The song is built upon a satisfyingly chunky Doorsy keyboard riff. The chorus is fun too - with a typically nonsensical'Ayayayayayay!'.
"Jesus Came From Outer Space" is a jolly number which belies its controversial title, indicating a less than reverential attitude to Christ and UFOs. This song and others here hark back to the first Supergrass album I Should Coco .
"Pumping On My Stereo" is another bit of lyrical chaff, which succeeds due to its singalong chorus and gung-ho cheerfulness. It is the direct descendant of famous early Supergrass drinking songs such as "Alright" and rests primarily on a classic T Rex guitar riff.
"Born Again" boasts a lovely psychedelic keyboards-and-guitar figure which hardly needs a lyric (which is lucky- it doesn't get much). It is sinister and gorgeous by turns and strings in the background accentuate its beauty.
"Faraway" reminds of old Syd Barratt, its dreamy lyric 'Wake me up each morning don't forget to plug me in' fitting with psychedelic disorientated guitar. The best songs on this album including this seem to be built around a great series of chords which have been jammed over a period of time and developed into their current form. Some like "Eon" remain a jam, but what a glorious jam.
"Mama and Papa" starts similarly dreamily and is about being lost as a child, or else feeling lost like a child. The song is a fragment really, a ploy which sometimes works on an album. This is engaging but is maybe too slight to be the final track on the CD.
This album shows Supergrass in two minds: they want to play noisy goodtime songs, and at the same time they want to experiment with more complex guitar work and put more 'feel' in the music. But the noisy goodtime stuff just doesn't match up to the moody stuff anymore - maybe because their heart isn't in the partying.
