Oasis: Heathen Chemistry

Oasis have always been noted for the fact that their b-sides are invariably as good as, if not better than the albums they accompany. Perhaps a worrying sign then, for the band’s first release in two years, and the first to feature former Heavy Stereo singer Colin ‘Gem’ Archer and ex-Ride and Hurricane#1 guitarist Andy Bell as fully-fledged members, is that the flip-sides to The Hindu Times and Stop Crying Your Heart Out weren’t actually that great. ‘Heathen Chemistry’ is thus approached with trepidation. First single, and opener The Hindu Times would seek to disprove any fears, being big and brash and uplifting, and taking you back to those over-wrought, ham-fisted solos Noel played on the first two albums. It is, however, completely unrepresentative of the album as a whole.

Our latest voyage into Noel Gallagher’s midlife ennui begins in earnest with Force of Nature. It’s a howler, a perhaps salvageable song hidden behind a ridiculous Chas and Dave sounding cockney knees-up arrangement. Gem Archer’s sole composition, Hung In A Bad Place is like most of Heavy Stereo’s ‘Deja Voodoo’ album with the exception of Chinese Burn, ie slightly underwhelming and extremely difficult to remember after you’ve just heard it. Little By Little sounds worryingly like Strong by Robbie Williams, but despite that it’s pleasant enough without being good enough to get on the ‘Masterplan’ b-sides album. Andy Bell’s instrumental A Quick Peep is thoroughly enjoyable (though short), but it leads into (Probably) All In The Mind. Taking Beatles derivation to the maximum, it sounds just like Taxman, without being anywhere as good.

Second single Stop Crying Your Heart Out is undoubtedly aimed at those non-smokers who take lighters to gigs, and is a rare example on this album of a song that actually spreads its wings. More a lullaby than a ballad, it nevertheless highlights the fact that Liam’s voice isn’t always suited to gentler songs. With another singer, say Richard Ashcroft, or even Noel, it might sound mesmerising, rather than the slight Don’t Look Back In Anger facsimile it is. Having said that, Don’t Look Back always managed to transcend the sum of its parts, and Stop Crying Your Heart Out is undoubtedly hummable. Songbird, Liam’s first track on the album, is a gentle song that he sings well, and is in fact astonishingly good, the kind of carefree effortless melody that Noel hasn’t really written since the ‘Morning Glory’ days. Over two chords, Liam delivers a mellifluous vocal accompanied by the gentlest of acoustic guitars, handclaps and rustic pump organ. The success of Songbird makes the derivative Born On A Different Cloud a disappointment, essentially being a composite of every song John Lennon wrote from 1967 to 1970, as played by the Rutles. At the band’s Wembley shows in 2000, Liam challenged Noel to write more tracks the like of Supersonic. It seems he’s taken up his own gauntlet, falling short slightly, with the closing track, Better Man (there is a hidden instrumental track, but it’s really not worth the half-hour wait). It brings to mind ‘Second Coming’-era Stone Roses, with a baggy shuffle and an insistent rather than pretty melody. For Oasis, it’s fairly funky, and a definite success for the musically more adept new line-up.

A new line-up, then, but it seems everything Oasis even think about releasing these days will be judged by the Bonehead and Guigsy performed ‘Definitely Maybe’. But bands are dependant on the people who are their members and people get older and their tastes change. They become parents, they begin to make money, the appetite diminishes a little. He’ll touch on it, but Noel Gallagher will never write another 'Definitely Maybe'. The edge isn’t there anymore, that over-riding desire to get out of council estate hell. It’s a sad fact, but we have to face up to it, same way some of us have accepted Paul McCartney will never again write anything the calibre of Eleanor Rigby. Getting drunk and drugged up in the streets of Burnage is just not where Noel’s head is any more. She Is Love however shows us where it is. It’s sunny and pleasant, and sounds like an acoustic Round Are Way. He’s with a new girlfriend, has given up drugs, has a young daughter, and has more money than he has guitars. Just. If you notice, he’s been trying to pass the job of spokesman for the working class on to a new incumbent for years, and I’m fine with that, because a thirty-five year old has no place being the poet laureate of the young people of the day. I can accept the fact that the days of Oasis releasing such dumb yet fun rock songs are in the past, because that’s ok, we all grow old. What saddens me slightly is the sheer dearth of decent songs Noel Gallagher’s written in the past few years, regardless of arrangement. Wonderwall and The Masterplan, two of Oasis’ most highly regarded songs, were acoustic, slow paced, and ever-so-slightly ‘dad-rock’.

Recently, comments from Noel appeared in the press, attacking Paul McCartney among others for having not written any good material since they turned thirty. The absence of song-writing ability after the age of thirty is a well-documented syndrome, afflicting many well-known song-writers the world over, and it looks like it has claimed, sadly, yet another victim.