The second song on Noel Gallagher’s
High Flying Birds is
titled ‘Dream On’. It’s a punchy tune that suggests Oasis fans can dare to
dream on that Noel can continue to produce great music without the vocal
contribution of estranged brother Liam (and vice versa as Beady Eye’s debut
album wasn’t too shabby).
If you’ve ever wondered what Oasis would be like without
Liam, you only ever had to listen to some of that
band’s classic b-sides like
The Masterplan and Talk Tonight. Now, High Flying Birds however is your chance
to here some A-side material in quantity. Similar in tone to
Dig Out Your Soul,
High Flying Birds runs along at an even pace backed by a crew of usual suspects
such as Dave Sardy and Marc Rowe.
Noel appears to have progressed as a lyricist – they seem to
be slighty more introspective than standard Oasis fare – where as
Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova’s lyrics were meanders slowly down the ‘hall of
whatever’, songs like The Death of You and Me and X strongly hint at real
moments that have occurred in Noel's life.
The Death of You and Me (
lyrics) is a nice wee tune, harking back to arguably
Oasis’ last genuine hit, The Importance of Being Idle. Underneath the song is a
nice basic guitar chord progress but it's wrapped in the usual sounds of
Beatles-esque horns and trumpets. The more you listen, the more you’ll perhaps come
to enjoy this as a classic Noel Gallagher song.
‘AKA What a life’ is a cracking single. Governed by a strong
piano riff and drum beat, Noel is in fine form. If one had to compare it to a prior
Oasis track, Falling Down jumps out, though I feel this is a better song. It
has a
good
video too – The Death of You and Me has a matching video. Watch them
together for an interesting story featuring Noel’s buddy Russell Brand.
Stop the Clocks (remember that name?) is a fine album closer - clearly written by Noel
when Oasis was still Oasis and it should have been a song sung by Liam - it's screaming out for his vocals.
Thanks to the development of the MP3, these days artistic
output is often consumed song by song – fans would be doing themselves a
dis-service if they only listened to the singles – this is a fine album, consistently
enjoyable the whole way through – with no filler tracks as the odd recent Oasis
album has been guilty of.
Noel should be proud of his debut solo effort,
positive sales suggest so as well.
I'm hanging out to see
Noel's set at the Big Day out in Auckland next week!
