Supergrass
St Petersburg

Bar room piano? Cloying sense of disillusionment? Heavy whiff of Cossack? Can this really be chirpy bed-drivers Supergrass gone all whisky-maudlin? Why yes, and a highly refreshing gear-shift it is too - like 'Sun Hits The Sky' in counselling, 'St Petersburg' is awash with Tindersticks-y strings, jazz drumming and a Lost In Translation sense of being stuck a week too long in a cheap Soviet hotel with nothing but a clunky old piano for company. Lush, downbeat and wonderfully unexpected - can I type 'up the 'Grass' again now?

MB, NME - 06 August 2005