Life on Other Planets – Tony Hoffer, planets, less hurry

Tony Hoffer, planets, less hurry

On 30 September 2002, Supergrass released Life on Other Planets on Parlophone, their fourth studio album and the first to list Rob Coombes as an official member. Working titles included Get Lost. Sessions ran from October 2001 to March 2002 across Mayfair, Heliocentric and Rockfield, with American producer Tony Hoffer (Air, Beck) hired to stop the band overthinking after the denser self-titled record. Danny Goffey later said Hoffer kept takes short and sweet and kept the room moving.

The singles show the shift. Never Done Nothing Like That Before teased the campaign in July 2002. Grace, issued mid-September, became the radio face of the album: bright, slightly glam, and built for the autumn UK tour that hit Shepherd’s Bush Empire and the usual Academy circuit. Seen the Light followed in January 2003; Rush Hour Soul closed the run in August. The album peaked at UK No.9 and also charted in Australia, France, Ireland and Norway. Mixing credits split between Hoffer, Dave Sardy and the band themselves, which fits a record that keeps both impact and melody.

This is power-pop Supergrass with some glam in the sound. Guitars chime and crunch in the same song. Keys color the choruses. Tempos stay fast. Za, Brecon Beacons, and Evening of the Day stretch the range without dropping the chorus. Where the 1999 self-titled album sometimes felt heavy and analytical, Life on Other Planets aims to keep moving. Hoffer’s ear, from outside the band, mattered: after producing themselves and John Cornfield, the band needed someone to call time on endless second-guessing.