Ballroom glitz

Supergrass overdress their sound

by Stephanie Zacharek

Like putting on make-up so it doesn't really show, sounding as if you hadn't a care in the world takes a certain amount of skill. The scruffy glam-pop Oxford (England) trio Supergrass had the system down cold on their debut, 1995's I Should Coco (Capitol). Songs like "Mansize Rooster" and "Alright" captured dead-on the sense of what it means to be a kid barely out of your teens, with insecurities and doubts, but also with a sense of freedom, an outsize sense of your own importance in the world.

Their uncorked exuberance owed something to the early Who, but without the Who's sense of the impending Apocalypse. Their biggest concern was the sheer weenie-shrinking embarrassment of being picked up by your mum at the police station after having been hauled in for possession of a minuscule amount of a controlled substance. (And hey, that is kind of a big deal.) More often than not, though, I Should Coco was a soundtrack for jumping up and down in a loopy interpretive dance about careless youth -- a sound picture of what it's like to go two whole days without a shower just because you feel like it.

But even Supergrass have to grow up, and in some ways that's too bad. Their new In It for the Money (Capitol) sports a bigger, beefier sound than I Should Coco. It's glitzier, more multi-layered, a sound with a thicker coat of mascara. I Should Coco whizzed by, so quick and dirty that the how-do-you-play-this-thing simplicity of the guitars didn't hit you till after the last song. In It for the Money sounds a lot less freewheeling, and sometimes almost belabored. It's as if the band felt obliged to step up to the plate with a new kind of maturity, but they haven't bulked up enough yet to fit the uniform.

Maybe it's just that Supergrass are trying to throw in a little too much of everything. On "Richard III," you get chords as chunky as platform shoes, and a theremin to boot. The human-beatbox stuff on "Sometimes I Make You Sad" sounds too contrived to have any significant effect; it's just another novelty item, and the circus-like calliope sound and Indian percussion thrown in for good measure don't help any. Most of the songs on In It for the Money could have used a little ruthless editing. It's like that old rule about accessorizing with jewelry: slap a bunch of it on and then take off the one piece that you think puts you over the top.

Even though they're often trying harder than they should, Supergrass still rack up plenty of points. On "Sun Hits the Sky," when Gaz Coombes sings, "Everyone knows why my tongue can't be tied/'Cause I want to live where the sun meets the sky," he sounds so resolute that you believe he wants to snatch every last crumb of pleasure to be found in this world. His guitar gallops like a thoroughbred, and drummer Danny Goffey gets a sizzle off his cymbals that's as bright as the glare of sunlight bouncing off a windshield.

"Hollow Little Reign" is the respite you need after too much of that sun: lanky, loping, and wonderful, it's like a nap in the shade. "I'm tired of thinking things over/ Conversations all around my head," Coombes sings, leaning into a swimmy layer of wah-wah guitars. Even with their new, buffed-up sound, it's clear that the Supergrass of "Hollow Little Reign" are the same band who gave us so many wild and woolly skateboard pirouettes on I Should Coco, and they're not about to shrivel up and wither anytime soon, even as they grow older and get more serious. On this one song at least, they're not rushing headlong into maturity just yet. They know that there ain't no cure for the summertime blues. Then again, there ain't no substitute for 'em either.