Rocket Men

Supergrass have quietly become a nifty little pop band. Sure, they're hardly S Club or anything, but their combination of maximum melody and goofy lyrics (bound together with a hefty dose of plagiarism) has gently been gestating into a joyously technicolour riot of strangely bearded odd-pop.

Tonight, uncovering material from forthcoming album, 'Life On Other Planets', the Britpop perennials prove that they may have piled on the years, but they've sent their pleasure-inducing hit single formula into overdrive. Onstage, little's changed since '94: Danny pounds away at his kit with the wayward force of Animal from 'The Muppets', Gaz hollers and howls like he's trying to reach his deaf aunt in Tasmania and Mickey, well, Mickey's just Mickey.

Warming us up with the ever-so-slightly-naughty, 'Pumping On Your Stereo', they bounce quickly into rabble-rousing new recruit, 'Grace', shot through with unadulterated pop smarts. By contrast, 'Rush Hour Soul''s warped hook slowly builds and intensifies until it finally explodes into a wreckage of vapourised melody, crashing distortion and pounding cymbals. Then the three whizz off into back catalogue territory, woo-oohing their way through a brace of indie disco classics: 'Caught By The Fuzz', the Led Zep-plundering 'Lenny' and the barking 'Mansize Rooster', all still sounding like a tartrazine enema, all still delivered with the vim of 19-year olds.

What we need to do now is get the distracting sunshine and festivals out of the way and roll on the autumn. Because when that new album hits the shelves we're in for a sugar-coated pop treat of the highest order. Pete Waterman won't know what hit him.

Krissi Murison, NME - 31 August 2002