nsign's Full Review: Don't Believe the Truth [PA] by Oasis
There is a wearyingly familiar pattern whenever a new Oasis album is trundled out these days. The press releases invariably describe it as a “return to form”, eyes are rolled at the silly title, Liam Gallagher swaggers around carping on about how he’s “mad for it again”, and Noel Gallagher dismisses his last couple of albums as rubbish while trying to convince us and himself that the new one is “the best since Morning Glory”. You would think he might have realised by now that we’re likely to take this claim with a heavy pinch of salt, given that he has been repeating this mantra since 1997, and that nearly every album since then has, give or take a few decent songs, stunk.
Where do Oasis get their motivation now, one wonders? It can’t be much of an encouragement to a band to know that the most their new album can hope for is to be regarded as their third best. Perhaps Noel and Liam simply haven’t the belly for it anymore. Marriages, divorces, children, years of criticism, age – All of these will undoubtedly have dampened the youthful fire which sustained them in their nineties heyday. Last year alone saw the band play a lifeless Glastonbury set which was ill received by fans and critics alike, and the release of a tenth anniversary edition of Definitely Maybe, which served to remind us of the brilliance this band were once capable of while cruelly re-iterating the downturn that has taken place since.
Liam’s “reputation” as a hardman was somewhat dented in 2002 when he picked a fight with a group of dark suited Italians in Munich who unfortunately turned out to be rather handy and knocked out his front teeth. Cue televised pictures of a sheepish looking Liam clumping through Heathrow airport, mouth uncharacteriscally clamped shut as he headed for some emergency dental work. Sniggers, it’s fair to say, could be heard.
Some would argue that if your heart's not in it, then it's time to get off the stage. This is advice that Oasis may have to heed on the evidence of their sixth album, Don't Believe The Truth, which finds the band drifting nonchalantly further into irrelevance and self-parody with a limp and shockingly plagiaristic collection of songs, which cannot be justifiably called "original material". The musically larcenous activities of Noel Gallagher have, in the past, succeeded because of the blatant and cocksure manner with which the band appropriated the best of rock history and stamped their own scowling authority on it - Think of the reborn T-Rex riff in Cigarettes and Alcohol, or the Imagine piano riff brazenly opening Don't Look Back In Anger. But on this album, the plagiarism seems to exist solely to fill a hole where the band's own identity should be, as though no one could be bothered to come up with something even vaguely original.
The band's swagger and supercool pomp in the mid 90's, coupled with Noel Gallagher's belief in his own songwriting talents and ability to produce thrilling distillations of classic musical moments, has long since evaporated. For one thing, they are a different band - Bassist Andy Bell and guitarist Gem Archer were members of second-rate Britpop bands who once penned second-rate Oasis songs. They're still doing exactly that, except now they're actually in Oasis. ( Bell, incidentally, was the songwriter behind Hurricane #1, an Oasis rip-off band from the late nineties who met with critical derision and the following comment from Noel Gallagher upon hearing one of their singles had reached the lofty chart position of 35: "That's 35 places too high, in my opinion". )
Noel has stirred himself sufficiently to write five of the twelve tracks here, and Liam contributes three. While Liam's songs are surprisingly competent, Bell and Archer's contributions would barely have passed muster as B-sides a few years ago - Perhaps Noel needs to get all dictatorial again and abandon the democratic approach, as it is not paying dividends. Bell's opening Turn Up The Sun has a jangling 30 second intro which sounds like, of all things, Travis, before shifting into one of those mid-paced bluesy stomps that always have to make an appearance, a la Fade In/Out or The Hindu Times. It's not bad, but lacks direction and has no real chorus, before winding up with a daft psychedelic keyboard prance. His closing Let There Be Love is a painfully obvious and syrupy Lennon rip-off, which does no one in this band any favours - Ten years ago they had the leeway to get away with this kind of thing, but not now.
Bell's third song is Keep The Dream Alive, which sounds like an anthem left over from the Britpop wars that no one wanted, reminiscent of Cast, The Charlatans, The Bluetones and any number of soundalike Beatle-haired scallies. Archer contributes the workmanlike A Bell Will Ring, which opens with an unexciting riff and sounds like a close cousin of Probably All In The Mind from Heathen Chemistry, which taxis along pleasantly enough but never leaves the runway.
Noel's first offering is Mucky Fingers, a total aural facsimile of the Velvet Underground's Waiting For The Man, which would be fun if done correctly. Noel's voice, however, is entirely wrong for the track, leaving him to tunelessly bellow some vague guff about "squeezing into the emperor's clothes. After the first 20 seconds or so, you'll be reaching for the skip button. Layla, no Lola, sorry - Lyla - casually lifts the melody to Street Fightin' Man, which rather spoils the enjoyment of what is otherwise a perfectly decent stomp-along rocker, with Liam giving his best vocal performance of the album.
Liam's vocals are a cause for concern - He frequently sounds hoarse and nasal, and his voice never approaches the ringing bark that appeared on Wonderwall or even Go Let It Out. On his own Love Like A Bomb he sounds terribly strained, and he's not helped by a clunking arrangement to an underdeveloped song. Added to this is the fact that throughout the record his vocals have been buried too deep in the mix, with phasing effects and various types of studio boffinry further hampering the Gallagher larynx.
Noel takes the mike for another pastiche, this time of The Kinks' Sunny Afternoon, on The Importance Of Being Idle, where he manages to just about pull off a quirkily eccentric melody, sings in a decent falsetto and muses, "I can't get a life if my hearts not in it." It's patently daft and possesses a strange charm, but it won't be a song that will ever be regarded as one of their best. The Meaning Of Soul is a horrible photocopy of the mid-sixties Rolling Stones, with it's rugged acoustic guitar riff and primitive drum clatter recalling Satisfaction and Jumpin' Jack Flash. The melody is rotten and the song is rushed, and should have been left off the album.
Liam's Guess God Thinks I'm Abel is a low key acoustic affair in the vein of Songbird, and has a hummable chorus, but as a song it just doesn't happen - It needs more of something, which is typical of the album. There are some half decent ideas here which the band have simply not developed enough to make them worthwhile. Part Of The Queue finds Noel mugging The Stranglers for the Golden Brown rhythm, and it trundles along with some busy drums from Zak Starkey ( son of Ringo Starr ) but just doesn't impress. Can so many great musical influences have ever been plundered to so little effect?
It's a question that Oasis seem unable or unwilling to address - Why bother listening to an album featuring cobbled-together facsimiles of the Velvet Underground, The Beatles, The Stranglers, The Kinks and The Who, when you can just listen to the far-superior originals? Defenders of the band may well argue that Oasis were always cheerfully piratical - Indeed, it was part of their appeal - but they've never done it with as little flair and as much cynicism as they have here. Ten years on from Definitely Maybe, they are a band running out of chances to prove they have a creatively viable future beyond being a glorified tribute band.
This could be the weakest Oasis album to date and there can be no excuse for the sheer laziness and blatant musical theft which pervades this album. If this were the debut offering of a new band, it would simply be ignored, and it comes at a time when Oasis have never had more to prove. They are regarded as well past their prime by all but the most idealistic of fans, and a new album needs to be as full of energy and justified arrogance as the high watermarks of Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory, which this emphatically is not. Noel Gallagher now seriously needs to pull his thumb out of his crack and reappraise his gameplan if he is to have any chance of recapturing the brilliance he is undoubtedly capable of.
Track Listing:
1. Turn Up The Sun
2. Mucky Fingers
3. Lyla
4. Love Like A Bomb
5. The Importance Of Being Idle
6. The Meaning Of Soul
7. Guess God Thinks I'm Abel
8. Part Of The Queue
9. Keep The Dream Alive
10. A Bell Will Ring
11. Let There Be Love
Product DetailsOriginal Title:Don't Believe The TruthCondition: NEWFormat: CDArtist: OasisLanguage: EnglishGenre: Alternative RockMore at iNetVideo.com
Don t Believe The Truth is the sixth Oasis album - their first since the number one multi-million selling Heathen Chemistry, released in 2002. It incl...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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