Britpop in the ’90s was mainly a process of bringing punk attitude to bear on classic-rock touchstones that the class of ’77 aimed a good part of their anger and violence at — from the Beatles and Stones to T. Rex and Mott the Hoople. On 1995’s I Should Coco, Oxford’s young and snotty Supergrass came on like England’s answer to Green Day with their hyperactive antics and revved-up, guitar-driven punky pop tunes. And as was the case with their Bay Area brethren, the artless naïveté with which singer/guitarist Gas Coombes, bassist Mick Quinn, and drummer Danny Goffey tossed off buzzing hooks and melodies belied a sophisticated if quirky pop sensibility that surfaced forcefully on 1997’s In It for the Money and 2000’s Supergrass.

The murky organ tones and staccato piano chords that kick off "Za," the first track on Life on Other Planets, help set the tone for the band’s fourth album in terms of its broadened musical palette, and they introduce Supergrass’s newest sonic colorist, keyboard player/family member Rob Coombes. Sure, the band have used keyboards in the past, but on Life on Other Planets, smooth, textured refrains are given equal time amid the thrashing drums, buzzsaw guitars, and screaming leads, sometimes even within the framework of a single three-minute pop nugget ("Rush Hour Soul"). Gaz Coombes’s Ziggy Stardust attitude, the complex background vocal arrangements, and the Mick Ronson guitar tones of "Seen the Light" (along with the disc’s galactic title) mark Bowie as one of the heavier influences this time around. But the overall Supergrass MO remains much as it’s always been — they’re just that much better at getting the job done.