Gaz Coombes – World’s Strongest Man (Hot Fruit/Caroline International)

Supergrass came to an end in 2010, and unlike more and more of their Britpop contemporaries, haven’t yet been tempted by a reunion tour cash cow, or dipping their toes in, to see if they can reform and record without spoiling their legacy. Good.

World’s Strongest Man is frontman Gaz Coombes’ third album as a solo artist – his second in contention for the much lauded Mercury Music Prize. And while it might be too esoteric for ‘pumping on the stereo’, it maintains Coombes’ quirky, sometimes cheeky, intelligent approach to songwriting.

Apparently inspired by a summer holiday read of Grayson Perry’s The Descent of Man, this album introspectively pokes at the tumultuous highs and turning-on-self lows of anxiety.

“Call me when the lightning strikes / don’t call me if your hair goes white”, sings Coombes on the title track. The falsetto vocal leading to the sense of fragility – that strongest could turn to weakest at the drop of hi-hat; self-confidence is conditional.

Personal support is alluded to in Walk the Walk, when, over beats on loan from Beck’s Odelay, Coombes sings “I’m through looking through the darkness […] baby you’re the one who can walk the walk”.

Elsewhere on this track, Coombes sings about the influence external factors can have on our communal stress levels. “In times of separation / paralysed by our own nation”. If this is Brexit hell, one wonders if the “driverless cars in Florida” – Oxygen Mask – are wishful thinking or the end of the dystopian road.

Coombes plays all the instruments himself, including the bedroom beeps, blips, strumming and beats – with occasional trips via the autobahn [Deep Pockets] – give you time to ponder on the lyrics, while still leaving them in the belly of the melody.

Slow Motion Life recounts the perpetual angst of falling from mighty confidence to an inescapable low  – “From the greatest heights / slow-motion life”. Peppered with electronic arpeggios and building to a fuzz-box climax, this is the take-home track.

You kind of miss the happy-go-lucky man who wrote Alright, but World’s Strongest Man is mindfulness for now – a pat on your back that it’s not just you.

World’s Strongest Man is due out May 4th

Simon Todd

Album Tracklist

• World’s Strongest Man
• Deep Pockets
• Walk the Walk
• Shit (I’ve Done It Again)
• Slow Motion Life
• Wounded Egos
• Oxygen Mask
• In Waves
• The Oaks
• Vanishing Act
• Weird Dreams