He has a pop-star smile and he flashes it long and often. Brett Anderson may be playing a nerve-shredding solo debut show, but he exudes the slick confidence of a man who is aware he is loved - particularly by the Japanese fan who was queuing outside of tonight's venue at half past six this morning.

Anderson, formerly the singer of louche Britpop lynchpins Suede, is previewing a debut solo album that he is billing as a "this is me" exercise in soul-baring. Despite excellent moments, the record is worryingly one-paced, a problem that also bedevils the main body of tonight's set.

Suede pitted Anderson's melodramatic, narcotic poetry against the zigzag riffs of guitarist Bernard Butler, and the singer now faces the Morrissey-esque problem of prospering without his musical foil. Much like the post-Verve Richard Ashcroft, Anderson has now chosen to major in overwrought ballads, heavy on passion but lacking light and shade.

But he is still a flamboyant performer. The single Love Is Dead is a reminder that he was originally an edgy Bowie acolyte, while Infinite Kiss paints love in luridly apocalyptic hues. He howls Song For My Father, a eulogy for his recently deceased parent, like a wounded animal: you hope the exercise is as cathartic as it looks.

It's engaging, but not overwhelming, until he encores with a mini Suede greatest hits set, whooping into the feral celebration of The Wild Ones and Film Star. Everything Will Flow exudes the carnal joie de vivre the main set craved and this arch showman, a pop star to his very soul, closes with the vermillion pout of Trash. And then he smiles that smile again.

· Ends tonight (box office: 020-8222 6955). At the Scala, London N1 (020-7833 2022) on March 30.