What's the price of maturity?

For acclaimed UK rockers Gomez, the cost has been new management, a new record company, and some rocky romantic relationships in the rearview mirror.

But the 10-year-old band has come out on the other end of it all with renewed vigor and a bolder sonic palette of strong melodies and spirited choruses on their new album, How We Operate. That sound, with a hefty dose of the band's trademark Southern blues, was on full display in a rousing show last night at San Francisco's Fillmore.

Though Gomez has three multitalented frontmen in Ian Ball, Ben Ottewell, and Tom Gray, it is Ottewell's soulful rasp and bluesy finger licks that have largely served as the core of the band's sound over their seven (five studio) albums.

But Gomez has increasingly infused that sound with an indie pop style and a singer-songwriter's lyrical sensibility, reflecting the influence of both Ball and Gray.

In lesser hands, such an amalgam could create a fractured hodgepodge, but the band moved with ease last night between songs sung by each frontman, from the boyish whimsy of Gray's "Girlshapedlovedrug" to Ball's breakup lament, "Notice."

The standout title track on Operate was also last night's highlight. It opens with a haunting banjo riff, of all things, mixed with an effects-laden ukulele. Ottewell's disarmingly soulful voice kicks the lurching rhythm into high gear, and he blurts out a line that might as well be the new Gomez mantra: "There is no line that you can't step right over."

Before long, "How We Operate" morphs into one of the band's classic, blazing guitar swells that would fit right into any set from the likes of the Allman Brothers Band or Lynyrd Skynyrd.

As many of their longtime fans have come to expect, particularly those present for the band's three-night Fillmore run in 2005 that became its Out West live album, this was no play-the-new-record-and-go-home show.

The band broke loose with plenty of its old favorites, particularly the whirling "Whippin' Piccadilly" and the spirited "Devil Will Ride."

While Gomez filled the room with its rich, densely layered 7-piece sound, opener David Ford did the same all by himself. The British singer-songwriter performed solo, surrounded by instruments, and would create rich sonic textures by playing guitar, keyboard, and percussion parts individually before feeding each into a looping tape system.

His one-man quintet was on full display in "State of the Union," a tour de force of leftist political songwriting that peaks with the verse: "What a model of Christian behavior/Preach on with the message of 'Go f*** thy neighbor'/It's a shame, it's a shame, it's a shame."

Ford was overwhelmingly emotive at times, pouring himself into one caustic verse after another from his debut album, I Sincerely Apologise for All the Trouble I've Caused, forcing the slowly trickling-in crowd to perk up. By the time the boys from Gomez climbed onstage, the crowd was amped, and stayed as such for two-plus hours.