This Turn the Car Around, Gaz Coombes’ fourth solo album, opens with pompous beatlesque tunes, the kind of musical scores Oasis might have written in the late 1990s. umpteenth record post of the britpop wave? Would the former leader of Supergrass be glued by nostalgic molasses to the glorious past of his late group?
Because yes, to glory, Gaz has tasted it. First in 1995, with the bubbly song OKthen in 1999 with the play Pumping on Your Stereoa heartfelt homage to the four knights of the apocalypse — sex, drugs, alcohol and rock.
Important info for younger kids: everyone loved listening to Supergrass back then; it was the occasion for a saving truce between the fans of Oasis and those of Blur (“Are you in the clan of the Gallager brothers or Damon Albarn, you?”).
Since entering the new millennium, Supergrass has made some commendable efforts, but nothing great. After the group disbanded in 2010, Gaz Coombes continued his solo career. One wondered if he would succeed beyond his defunct group. His first three efforts proved he didn’t need his band to build catchy, popular songs, but there remained that vague memory of his Britpop past.
We pass over this same style heard in the intro of his fourth essay released at the beginning of the year; the other eight pieces offer rock, soul, pop-glam and even folk sounds. Happy elements in the musical decor of an evolving artist.
Turn the Car Around allows us to hear a singer who has matured: he no longer seeks to dazzle us with the strength of his vocals, but rather with his precision and the harmony he seeks with the other sounds heard — drums in the foreground, flights of electric guitars, piano, some electro elements — and the warm presence of the choristers of the group The Roxys, very audible on the piece Don’t Day It’s Over.
Turn the Car Around marks the tenth anniversary of Gaz Coombes’ solo career in a beautiful way and demonstrates that he is more than the guy who sang for a Britpop group, in another millennium.
Rock
Turn the Car Around
Gas Coombes
Gaz Coombes Ltd