Gaz Coombes has grown up, but he hasn't grown old. The carefree effervescence that characterized his band Supergrass, Britpop's cheeky monkeys, has vanished, but five years into a solo career the band's erstwhile frontman refuses to settle into the traditional post-split career trajectory.
"I find the whole earnest, tortured songwriter thing a bit ugly," Coombes says on the phone from his Oxford home. "It grates on me. I don't want to sit on a chair with an acoustic guitar and sing sad songs. I want to excite people and entertain. Even the album cover, it's a statement of real intent — I'm not sat there with an acoustic guitar looking cool and moody."
That album, second solo effort "Matador," is his strongest in some time. Coombes says "it's inevitable that being on your own, doing things at your own pace and your own style" led to an "exploration of new ideas" on the release. He isn't wrong: With Krautrock flecks, Moog sounds and ambient interludes, it has echoes of the more digestible post-millennium output of fellow Oxford contemporaries Radiohead, and is a world away from the giddy euphoria of Supergrass' signature hit "Alright." In contrast to its uneven predecessor "Here Come the Bombs," it sounds like a man comfortable with life on his own.