If you were the gambling sort, would you have put your hard-earned cash on Gaz Coombes to be still releasing albums in 2023?

Coombes’ band, Supergrass, were perhaps the essence of Britpop, channelling laddish rebellion on their 1995 debut, I Should Coco, when the frontman was just 19; the assumption would have been that more po-faced crooners were ahead of him in the quest for musical longevity.

Yet Coombes has carved out quite a career as a solo artist, Turn The Car Around becoming the 46-year-old’s fourth solo album in 11 years. Written and recorded in his ramshackle Oxfordshire outhouse studio, it’s brimming with the kind of catchy guitar music that Radiohead used to make: grown-up without being boring.

The infectious chug-a-lug of ‘Feel Loop (Lizard Dream)’ wouldn’t seem out of place on The Bends; the bittersweet ‘Dance On’ is like a Richard Hawley out-take (a big compliment); and the catchy title-track is like Badly Drawn Boy fronting The Coral.

‘Not The Only Things’, meanwhile, proves that Coombes can pen a tender, emotional ballad without ever dipping into schmaltz; and current single ‘Long Live The Strange’ is a joyous glam anthem for those of us who don’t fit in. Recommended.

Listen: 'Long Live The Strange'
Score: 8/10

Turn The Car Around is out now via Virgin Music.

Read more album reviews in the brand new #HotFor2023 issue of Hot Press, starring The Murder Capital and Sam Smith.