Ready to Receive - The Animalhouse

This is as big an Oxford supergroup as we're ever going to get (unless Supergrass and Radiohead decide to perform together). So let's get the history out of the way first. Ride. The Mystics. Supergrass. There...

Anyway, so what is the album like? Well the best tracks are the more uptempo ones, Animal and Small. In both songs they manage to wind the song up, like clockwork, and then suddenly let go, with an explosion of course. The song from which the band found their name, Animal House, sounds like it could have been written by the Beatles, not in the Oasis kind of way, but during the psycadelic era.

Some of the slower songs are also very good. In particular Speakeasy. It's very chilled out and laid back. And coming after Animal on the album, it marks the change of tone of the album.

The last few tracks on the album are a bit of a disappointment though. From Sunday Driver onwards they sound like they had given up, just writing songs to fill out the album. What saves this album is that the first half is just so outstanding, and original.