Gaz Coombes’ second solo album, 2015’s Matador, discovered him shaking off the shackles of his previous in no unsure phrases. Elevating his inventory from “former Supergrass frontman” to highly-regarded, Mercury Music Prize-nominated solo star in a single fell swoop, the report reaped wealthy crucial rewards, however its success additionally considerably raised expectations for Coombes’ highly-anticipated follow-up, World’s Strongest Man.
Hearken to World’s Strongest Man now.
If the dreaded “difficult third album” syndrome ever blighted Coombes in the course of the album’s creation, it doesn’t present. Launched on Could 3, 2018, World’s Strongest Man was the results of periods at Coombes’ dwelling studio (“very much a spontaneous thing… what gives me a buzz is not knowing quite what you’re going to do”, he defined) and at Oxford’s Courtyard advanced with long-time co-producer Ian Davenport. Its title impressed by Grayson Perry’s masculinity-related The Descent Of Man, the album is a various, 11-song set of cryptic, but deeply private songs which rank amongst Coombes’ greatest.
Selecting up from the place he left off with Matador, Coombes drew upon a broad sonic palette, utilizing persistently daring brushstrokes to create his new report’s collection of mini masterpieces. A pair of exhilarating trailer singles – the sinewy “Walk The Walk” and the motorik, Neu!-esque pulse of “Deep Pockets” – prompt his stressed muse was main him to pastures new, whereas the lumbering beats, haunting gospel-style vocals, and complex digital embroidery of the opening titular track rapidly reinforce the notion that Coombes has gone all out in his quest to trend a fearless, future-facing rock’n’roll report.
To his immense credit score, although, Coombes hardly ever let any liberties he took with sound textures obscure his abilities as a first-rate pop craftsman. Certainly, long-term followers had been with him all the way in which when he turned up the guitars on the dynamic “In Waves” and the tense, edgy “Vanishing Act.” Initially an unadorned, acoustic guitar-driven lament, the world-weary “Oxygen Mask” additionally loosely reconnects Coombes along with his previous, although the track’s lyric (“They got driverless cars in Florida and drones to your door”) is rooted firmly within the current.
Elsewhere, Coombes is briefly struck down by a bout of self-doubt on the – truly quite seductive – “S__t (I’ve Done It Again),” however he’s rapidly again on observe with the playful, Californian weed-inspired “Wounded Egos” and using skittering drums and hypnotic, Can-esque basslines to spectacular impact on the ruminative “The Oaks.” Final however certainly not least, there are the 2 beautiful, if barely quixotic ballads: the minimal and aptly-titled “Weird Dreams,” and “Slow Motion Life,” which blows up from piano-framed vulnerability to Vesuvius-strength sonic eruption throughout 4 engrossing minutes.
World’s Strongest Man, then, exhibits us precisely why we should always cherish Gaz Coombes. It’s a brave, risk-taking report from an artist with an illustrious previous who’s come into his personal within the current.
World’s Strongest Man will be purchased right here.
