Supergrass

Of all the bands to emerge from the ephemeral soup of Britpop, few would have imagined that Supergrass would prove to be the most enduring. While the past seven years have seen the Gallagher brothers making spectacularly uninteresting music and Damon Albarn transmute into a cartoon, Supergrass cheerfully trundled along adding to its rope of consistent albums — culminating with last year’s Supergrass is 10 greatest hits package, which showcased an oeuvre with a near-offensive density of fun, pithy pop. Road to Rouen doesn’t ascend to the band’s previous summits but adds a couple of hits to their capacious catalogue with the persistent and flawless "St. Petersburg” and "Low C.” Whereas previous Supergrass albums have been marked by an eager willingness to please, Road to Rouen seems written for the band’s own salutary means, and the results are often uncharacteristically sombre, but characteristically enjoyable.