Pop gig of the week: John Grant, Heaven, London WC2

Going solo: John Grant swaps the AOR opulence of Queen of Denmark for synth-pop on his new album, Pale Green Ghosts

In his various guises, John Grant has made an art out of his ability to craft grand pop melodramas from personal crises. Fronting the Czars, he turned drug issues and career struggles into transcendent baroque fancies.

Solo, he swaps the AOR opulence of Queen of Denmark for synth-pop on his new album, Pale Green Ghosts, but his lush voice and wry, scathing eye hold firm, ranging from his HIV+ diagnosis to the hometown he hates because it's too small for him and his ex.

Grant's talent, mind, is no small thing: if it seems unlikely that he'll run out of trying subject matter any time soon, the chances of his wit and melodic reserves running dry seem equally, albeit more happily minimal.

0871 220 0260; seetickets.com, Wednesday