Gaz Coombes – The English Ruse

Matador, January 2015: piano first, then the Oxfordshire players come in

Piano hits first, bright and restless, before the guitars thicken and Gaz Coombes sings over a steady beat that does not copy Britpop. The English Ruse is track three on Matador, his second solo album, released 26 January 2015 on Hot Fruit Recordings via Caroline International. It sits between the single-ready 20/20 and the dreamier The Girl Who Fell to Earth, a place where the record shows its melodic muscle without sounding like Supergrass cosplay. From the first chorus you hear a frontman rebuilding a catalogue under his own name, and enjoying the freedom.

Coombes produced the album himself. Most of it was cut at his home studio in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, with spillover days at Courtyard Studios in Sutton Courtenay when cabin fever hit. Ride drummer Loz Colbert, Charly Coombes, and guitarist Nick Fowler appear across the record; Coombes still plays the bulk of the parts. The arrangement on The English Ruse keeps the piano figure clear, the drums, with little echo, hitting clearly, and the vocal close to the mic. That galloping piano later became a shorthand for the album’s soulful AOR streak: not a pastiche of 1970s radio, but a live-feeling band take that leaves air around the keys.

Live, the song slotted into the February 2015 UK run that opened at Bristol Fleece and hit London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall early in the tour. It was never the flagship single (those were Buffalo, 20/20, Detroit), but on stage it gave Coombes a chance to stretch the piano hook into a push with the whole band. Streaming put the track on official uploads under his own channel, the album version without a separate video campaign. For listeners who only knew the Supergrass singles, this was the sound of the engine still running, with Courtyard air and home-studio raw edge in the same mix.

Piano hits first, bright and restless, before guitars thicken on track three of Matador (26 January 2015, Hot Fruit via Caroline). It sits between single-ready 20/20 and dreamier neighbours as proof of melodic muscle under Coombes’s own name. The February 2015 UK run, from Bristol Fleece to Queen Elizabeth Hall, stretched the piano figure into a push with the whole band, without Britpop nostalgia.