Supergrass
Diamond Hoo Ha

After taking a wrong turn with 2005's Road to Rouen, on their sixth album Supergrass wallow in their love of glitzy glam stomps, with Gaz Coombes doing his best Bowie and Iggy Pop impressions. The band's acoustic vagaries are confident and polished on Ghost of a Friend, which, like the lovely When I Needed You, struggles to equate youthful exploits with welcomed maturity. But the gems are few and far between. The title track has the unwieldy riffs, silly lyrics and oft-grunted "Yeah!" that only a shameless rock archivist like Lenny Kravitz can pull off. And confused experiments like the paranoid nightmare of Whiskey and Green Tea - imagine Aneka's Japanese Boy battling a big band - undermine their rekindled spirit.
3/5

Betty Clarke, The Guardian - 28 March 2008