- Music
- 02 Mar 15
The other G-Man is back with solo album No. 2
“Go to bed and give me a shout in 2015,” Liam Gallagher tweeted in 2011, in response to Noel reportedly calling him “a sham”, which has to be one of the tamer insults rock’s favourite quarrelling siblings have exchanged.
It is now 2015 but, rather than reform Oasis, Noel is poised to release his second solo album. His eponymous High Flying Birds debut ended up outselling Liam’s Beady Eye four to one. The follow-up is self-produced and, by some stretch, the most diverse album Noel has ever written. The even better news is it is also easily his finest work since Don’t Believe Truth, or perhaps even the decade defining (What’s the Story) Morning Glory.
That said, it’s hardly stuffed with hits. However pleasing, spaced-out and bluesy songs like ‘Riverman’, seemingly inspired by a night on the tiles of Los Angeles with Russell Brand and Morrissey (the mind truly boggles), probably won’t take the world by storm, in the fashion of ‘Wonderwall’ or ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’.
Psychedelia rubs shoulders with balls-to-the-floor rockers like ‘Lock All the Doors’ (an Oasis song that actually predates Definitely Maybe) and ‘The Mexican’. The closing track and crowning song ‘Ballad of the Mighty I’ features one Johnny Marr.
“What I love about him is he’ll come in and play on a track and it isn’t the Johnny Marr show,” Noel said in the countdown to the release of Chasing Yesterday. On this evidence, the Noel Gallagher show is going very well indeed.
Key Track - 'Ballad of the Mighty I'