volumemusic

Reviews:

"In the 1960s, great bands used to make ten LPs in five years. Supergrass made but four in twice that time-a pretty meager catalog from which to select a 21-song overview. And presenting these pumping songs non-chronologically doesn't help matters. Even over the course of just four albums, we've watched this trio turn quartet and mature from the hot, hyper puppies of 1995's debut I Should Coco to the mangy, still-rangy dogs of 2002's Life on Other Planets-just like their R&B/garage-to-psychedelia British Invasion forebears. Mixing up this assortment fails to highlight that progression, so at times this feels like a sampler of four different bands.

Yet it's a measure of Supergrass' consistency that this collection is such great fun, a spanking overdose of pop smarts, exuberance, classic licks, cracking tunes, and a hot, grinding rhythm section. It's as easy to get caught up in the post-Buzzcocks amphetamine rush of ""Strange Ones"" and the LP (and career) opener ""Caught by the Fuzz"" or the rollicking neo-Madness bounce of ""Mansize Rooster"" as it is to be transported by the Sgt. Pepper majesty of ""Richard III"" and ""Sun Hits The Sky"" (from 1997's pinnacle LP In It for the Money), not to mention the more recent T.Rex cops and groovy-cool Bowie-isms. Of the two new songs here, the faux-disco-funk-techno (think Remain in Light Talking Heads) of new UK single ""Kiss of Life"" shows where they could go wrong. Whereas ""Bullet"" shows where they can go right, a meaty slab of Supergrass superpower with a dangerous fuzz bass that makes the old dog sound newly mean-and makes you believe that Supergrass Is 20 might prove just as delicious in 2014.

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