Any list of Britpop’s distinguished elder statesmen is unlikely to have Gaz Coombes—the mutton-chopped frontman for English oddballs Supergrass—in its top five. But over the course of six solid-to-great full-lengths, Supergrass were a welcome alternative to the witty austerity, sexual malaise, and idol worship that came to define the movement. Around the time of the 2004 singles collection Supergrass Is 10, it became clear that Supergrass were born to play Cult Favorite. From the whirligigging Ritalin rush of their U.S. breakthrough "Alright" to the rip-snorting grunge-pop of "Richard III" and on through the retro-futurism of "Rush Hour Soul", Supergrass reminded people how much fucking fun being in a rock band could be. Still, Coombes’ post-Supergrass output has been prone to the usual trappings. There was the HotRats’ Turn Ons, a one-off covers collection that found Coombes and Supergrass bandmate Danny Goffey tackling such on-the-nose favorites as "Love Is the Drug" and "Queen Bitch" (and, uh, "Fight for Your Right (to Party)"); an obligatory car commercial; his 2012 debut solo affair Here Come the Bombs. Now with Matador, Coombes takes the road more traveled, offering 11 new tunes that retain familiar glimmers of mischief but try to appeal to a more mature sensibility.
Coombes still sounds eager, and Supergrass' sense of restlessness continues here: Matador suggests a guy constantly on the move, exorcising as much as from his brain as he can before scurrying on over to the next thing. But where Coombes was once a conscientious self-editor, keeping things as lean and catchy as possible, here he tends to overwork ideas. Take "Detroit", which is fairly representative of the album on the whole: What starts out as a wonderfully introspective, acoustic track built for daydreaming gives way to overblown bursts of string-augmented gospel. Matador is constantly being pulled in different directions. Had he resigned himself to taking a looser, more natural approach (which did Bombs a favor or two), or gone all-the-way with the Albarn-esque pageantry, we might be talking about a more interesting record.
Fans will no doubt try to engage with Matador as a Supergrass album, which is unfair. But when it seems content to play as merely a Supergrass footnote, it’s hard not to make easy comparisons. A few tracks make some effort to remedy that kind of thinking, all while appeasing longtime loyalists. "The English Ruse" is one of the better songs here, its looping, Schroeder-indebted keyboards primed to score another wacky sped-up music video (fun fact: Steven Spielberg once approached Supergrass to do a Monkees-inspired TV show), but this time with a strong undercurrent of paranoia. "Needle's Eye", which ultimately suffers from overcrowding, has a louche touch reminiscent of the B-movie glam of Life on Other Planets. The cautious creep of single "20/20", which nicely exemplifies Matador’s crisp production values, helps balance its lucid moments of euphoria by blending in uneasier elements along the way. Coombes comes at these songs with a less-is-more attitude, but even the simplest fare fails to connect. The Manic Pixel Dream Girl fantasy "The Girl Who Fell to Earth", which finds Coombes "blinded by computer love," is a snoozer that predicts a good portion of Matador’s back end. "Oscillate" is stoner music that plays like a parody of stoner music, while the reflective "Seven Walls" and the understated title track are just there. Instead of following his darker impulses or fantastically out-there indulgences, Coombes plays it safe.
