Here Come The Bombs – Solo bombs from a Wheatley basement

After Supergrass, a bomb with a fuse

On 21 May 2012, after Supergrass split, Gaz Coombes released Here Come The Bombs on his own Hot Fruit Recordings with EMI for UK marketing. He started most tracks alone in a home/basement setup in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, then moved to Sam Williams’s Templesound studio in Oxford to write further, record, and mix. Williams had produced Supergrass’s debut I Should Coco; here he co-produced and played drums, bass, keys, and theremin on selected cuts while Coombes handled nearly everything else.

The sound leaves the light Britpop rhythm behind for denser rhythms, distorted guitars, and synth colour. Opener Bombs came partly from TV images of conflict; Coombes talked about aerial footage that looked unreal until you imagined the ground. Singles and standouts include Hot Fruit, Simulator, Break the Silence, and Whore. NME scored the album 8/10. The sleeve – headphones drawn as a bomb with a fuse – matches the title’s double meaning: songs as small sonic bombs, and a decade of background war noise.

Owning the masters on Hot Fruit mattered: Coombes controlled artwork and single choices instead of waiting on a major’s committee. Early UK shows at places like Bush Hall and festival slots introduced the solo voice without Supergrass nostalgia as the main hook.