Album Review: Gaz Coombes - Here Come The Bombs

Ya gotta feel for Gaz Coombes. As front-monkey with Britpop frontrunners Supergrass, he enjoyed sheer mega-stardom with a run of three stellar albums. To this day, indie discos worldwide rightly continue to spin the likes of Alright and Pumping On Your Stereo as classics. But once the 'B' word waned in coolness, the 'Grass were left to grow with nobody watching. A shame considering their later career contained many more riches.

Four years after their widely ignored finale, Gaz has retreated to his home studio where he seems contemplative yet content. Often, his vocals are laidback, restrained even, almost as if he's trying not to wake the children. Bombs could have been written for them as a slumber song before he heads downstairs to rock out on Hot Fruit (the track which lends its name to Gaz's new record label) and Whore. But a couple of rock-outs aside, there's not much in the way of the 'big' sound we're used to from Coombes. Without a band of merry men to egg him on, there's little sense of urgency, which isn't actually bad. White Noise for example is a catchy, tender song written from the point of a globetrotting rockstar returning to reintegrate into family life.

With a touch of prog-rock here and electronica there, the DIY mentality of Here Comes The Bombs makes for a very homely kind of rock record. It's like Coombes is almost glad the hoo-ha of Britpop and bandmates in tabloid sex scandals days are over, 'cause the record he's made sounds fresh, not burnt out.