POP MUSIC REVIEW : Toy: Showing Signs of Maturity : Band co-founder Kevin Gilbert displays at the Coach House a command of craft precociously beyond his years.

The initial buzz on Toy Matinee was that the band was the pet project of Patrick Leonard, a songwriter and keyboard player famous as a favored collaborator with Madonna and Bryan Ferry. On Toy Matinee’s recent debut album, Leonard is one of only two listed and pictured members of the group, the other being a young, unknown quantity, Kevin Gilbert.

So it was natural that when Toy Matinee made its local debut Sunday night at the Coach House and the more famous half of that duo was missing in action, sans explanation, some brave soul late in the set finally asked the inevitable: “Where’s Pat?”

(Answer: In England working on a Roger Waters record. “He sends his best, though,” the fan was informed.)

Actually, the band is much more the brainchild of wunderkind Gilbert, who--in addition to having a major hand in the songwriting--sings, plays guitar and piano, tosses off on-stage witticisms and shows a command of craft precociously beyond his 24 years. Certainly, no one among the full, enthusiastic house who liked the album noticed Leonard’s absence in anything other than physical presence.

Gilbert’s approach isn’t perfectly developed and honed yet, but the flair for hooks is already fully realized, and there’s much more maturity than there are missteps in his material, which is often impressively emotional even while unmistakably slick.

On Sunday night, the catchy and apocalyptic “Last Plane Out” may have been best known to album-rock radio listeners. But among the more affecting numbers were “The Ballad of Jenny Ledge” (a true story, Gilbert claimed, about his girlfriend leaving him for an Elvis impersonator during the making of the album--if so, some great revenge), “There Was a Little Boy” (potentially trite but true broken-home stuff) and the closing “We Always Come Home” (home, hearth and forward-to-the-grave mortality).

Toy Matinee’s sophisticated pop is most comparable to, say, latter-day Mr. Mister or Bourgeois Tagg, though an antecedent Gilbert might in more likelihood cite is Elton John, whose “Love Lies Bleeding,” played as an encore, was the sole non-original number in the set. (Meanwhile, stringy-haired Gilbert looks like--and has at least some of the casual, wise-cracking virtuosity of--a young Todd Rundgren.)

The four pickup musicians Gilbert had in tow had “studio player” written all over their faces (and the female synth player looked suspiciously model-pretty, like Mariah Carey with a DX7), but in their faithfulness to the arrangements, they managed to provide a surprisingly, welcomely muscular approach. The songs were, for the most part, slightly improved upon live, without--it was proudly announced at the start--benefit of sequencing or other secret enhancement.

Given Gilbert’s youthful likability and prodigy, you’re likely to forgive him a few things you might not a veteran hand--like, an hour-length run-through of one album’s nine songs plus one Elton cover does not quite a full, satisfying show make. Even in miscalculated brevity, though, this one came close.

Toy Matinee also plays the Strand in Redondo Beach on Wednesday (already sold out) and the Roxy in Hollywood on May 1.