Fear not Oasis fans! The latest, long awaited offering has the usual tried and tested winning formula. You’ll find Liam sings some songs but then again Noel sings a few. You’ve got your fast ones where Liam sings, then you’ve got your fast ones where Noel sings. Of course Oasis wouldn’t be Oasis if there weren’t some slower ones too! Unbelievably, sometimes Liam sings them, sometimes Noel sings them. I would ask if you are getting the picture but the only picture that changes with Oasis is the album cover (and two of the band!).
Harsh? The Oasis formula is the same, not so much to borrow but cynically rip-off other people’s riffs and make them your own. On track 3 you fully expect Jim Morrison to come back from the dead and scream ‘5 to 1’ when instead you get Noel singing ‘Waiting for the Rapture’. It is a great stomping song, but then it would be wouldn’t it? They pick-pocket Moby on (Get Off) Your High Horse Lady’, while the rather brilliant ‘Shock Of The Lightening’ seems to rip off not someone else but their own ‘Rock and Roll Star’.
This is spoiled only by those once charmingly naff lyrics (remember - walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball) which are now just naff. ‘Love is a time machine…up on the silver screen’. Just as Liam’s, once dynamic, affected drawl can sometimes grate.
But, regardless of all of the above, it is a good album and if you buy into them and give a big ‘fuck you’ to the naysayers like me then perhaps it may even be a great one.
The magpies of British music still generate more excitement than all of their contempories, and undoubtedly their fans will love it. One thing is for sure that tried, tested formula still works.
It is oft said that people have a window of talent that only lasts for so long. Hell, David Bowie was shite for ages, so why should we continually lambast Oasis for not maintaining the brilliance of ‘Definitely Maybe’. Surely you can only change the musical landscape once.
‘Dig Your Own Soul’ is possibly their best album since …wait for it… ‘What’s The Story’, then again (some might say) it’s possibly just ‘The Same Old Bollocks’.
www.oasis.net
Shock Of The Lightening (in the unlikely event you haven't heard it, but fuck it - it is still worth a listen!
Posted In Album Reviews, Oct 16 2008.
Words - The Ginger