Cornershop

What a difference a decade makes. After being downright ubiquitous, thanks to massive hit "Brimful of Asha," Cornershop dropped off the radar and even the release of a rather splendid album, 2002's Handcream For A Generation, didn't register much of a blip. Yet Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast is a damned good reminder of why they were so beloved in the first place. It isn't just their knack for coming up with glorious pop songs that fuse Indian music with whatever else was their thing at the time, but they're able to say something in their songs, even if that was completely lost on the majority of their audience. After all, how many people really knew who Asha Bhosle was despite singing along to her name? These days, Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres have been listening to a lot of glam rock and that T-Rex-like sound dominates the first half of the album before relaxing into a more soulful groove that's easy to listen to and almost impossible to dislike. The most intriguing part of the record is short instrumental interlude "Half Brick," which arrives amidst layers of disco strings and then disappears far too quickly. Spending more time in that territory would have been nice, but it's hard to complain about a record that's wonderfully familiar yet surprisingly fresh.