Gaz Coombes, gig review: Former Supergrass frontman gets serious with grand showcase of intricate solo material

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London

Tonight, the former Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes presents new songs from his second solo album, Matador as he performs a grand show at Southbank's Queen Elizabeth Hall.

The Ivor Novello and Brit award-winning musician responsible for ten top 20 hits and six top 20 albums quietly takes to the stage, swamped by wires, pedals and instruments and backed by a 4-piece band and 32-piece choir.

Flitting between a Waldorf keyboard and guitars, Gaz Coombes eases us into Matador's songs gently, opening with a BBC Radio 6 favourite, "Buffalo", a turbulent minor-key ballad on piano and guitar that rises into the electronic traces of fellow Oxford resident, Thom Yorke's analogue framework.

Coombes stretches his songwriting muscles on Matador as tonight bursts with its bold choruses, intricate compositions and layered choral arrangements. Doing away with the verse-chorus-verse pop standard, Coombes weaves in elements Brian Eno's ambient electronica on “To The Wire”, the krautrock of Neu! on “The English Ruse” and even the choral micro-polyphonies of György Ligeti on “Needle's Eye”.

“20/20” opens with a downtempo beat as the soprano-led choir builds the harmony to its show-stopping choral hook on the lyric “I’d take the hurricane for you”, before tumbling down with the strained orchestral quality of Radiohead’s In Rainbows.

Performing singles “White Noise” and “Hot Fruit” from 2012's Here Come The Bombs prove clear indicators of a time when Coombes was still trying to find his voice. Written only a few months after the breakup of Supergrass, these songs sound awkwardly flat alongside the emotionally articulate and inventive fluidity of Matador.

The Southbank venue seems to suit Coombes' current style too, opening up its epic intent and allowing him to act as both skilled curator and conductor.

As the crowded stage ties together Matador’s textures, it also bumps along Coombes's lyrical roots of self-doubt, loss and drug-induced tour psychosis with his singular voice at the fore. It has always been his most powerful pop instrument and his wild, bordering on hysterical, vocals are experimented with as much as the instrumentation of Matador. Vocal echoes of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band are audible on “Seven Walls” while the world-weary cracks of Win Butler are heard on “The English Ruse” as Coombes produces varying howls of pain.

Picking up a shabby acoustic guitar on “The Girl Who Fell To Earth” Coombes morphs a delicate guitar-line into an ambient loop backed by juddering bass-line and a nightmarish lullaby, while “Detroit”'s precise, krautrock drum patterns are provided perfectly by Ride's ex-drummer Laurence “Loz” Colbert as Coombes recounts the unsettling (and true) story of a drug-fuelled breakdown on tour.

It's hard to imagine that the creator of “Alright” is the same man performing tonight. Coombes has certainly wised up lyrically and musically, graduating as a gifted composer that can hold this evening's many elements together with a masterful sense of control and balance.

Displaying some powerful songwriting, Coombes has produced a collection of songs as ambitious as they are beautiful. An impressive and surprisingly mature turn from the Supergrass frontman.