Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Noel Gallagher's
High Flying Birds
"Black Days, Black Dogs and Bleak Moments"

"……….and your bird can sing. But you don't get me, you don't get me…………………"

OK so I've started with the Beatles analogies from the get go and for that I'm sincerely sorry. Because the Oasis fracture of Gallagher & Gallagher is not in any way Beatlesque. It may well be the only thing about Oasis that isn't Beatlesque, but let it be, it is. Noel & Liam aren't Lennon & McCartney. Noel & Liam are simply & genetically two sides of the same coin. They might like to contest that, but deep down they know they are. Lennon & McCartney were separate entireties, as people, and as songwriters. They were poles apart. They weren't two sides of the same coin, they were two completely separate bits of monetary barter altogether. They were ying & yang, they were salt & saltpetre, they were saccharin & vitriol. And this is why my record collection has every single vinyl utterance by the solo Lennon and absolutely nada by McCartney.

But the splitting of Oasis isn't Beatlesque. There are no sides to be taken. No corner to be fought. No preference to be made. No personal taste to consider. Liam & Noel are two sides of the same coin, inseparable. One side of the coin may well depict a lion rampant and the other a portrait of a beneficent soul. But the coin is still a single item. To deny one at the expense of the other is frankly daft. So if you're an Oasis fan and you find yourself bizarrely only buying Beady Eye's debut, or only High Flying Bird's and not the other, modify your ways, you are obtuse in the extreme! Dispensing with either Noel or Liam is like attempting to slice a coin down the centre of its circumference. It is a vain glories pursuit which will make you none the richer.

That said this review isn't going to be a mawkish blubbering appeal to the Gallagher's to reform Oasis. Oasis needs to be left aside for while. It will be picked up again. Because the Oasis split is not Beatlesque. And as I said when I reviewed "Different Gear / Still Speeding" earlier this year Oasis had contented itself with repeated success. "Repeated success" is what the record industry demands, but what every normal minded individual should rail against. The only way out of that "repeated success" syndrome is by way of catastrophic failure or death. The Gallagher's chose death. But Oasis will return………...eventually, because as I keep saying the split of Oasis is not Beatlesque.

Firstly then, and most importantly, "Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds" cost me £14.99 plus P&P. (For me that is a lot of KA$H). For that princely sum I got a lovely slice of vinyl in a gatefold sleeve and a hideous link to a series of deadhead downloads. The cover, insert and gatefold artwork is dull dull dull Americana coffee table crapola. Unfortunately for me this bad news because even though I am a recovering alcoholic who drinks at least 8 pints of coffee a day I don't have a coffee table and don't intend investing in one any day soon. The sleeve artwork may look nice being waved about whilst sipping a Mocha Frappé in Rough Trade East but in the real world the cover is inanely bland, in whatever format you may choose. The two single promo video's, which feature the glorious U S of A as a marketing tool are also a massive turn off. Time for Noel to meet some real people me thinks.

The naming of High Flying Birds in homage to Peter Green is however, a thing I cannot indorse highly enough. I saw Green last in a musical backwater (Ludlow) some years ago now. Any bloke who play the blues meticulously all night, stop suddenly mid riff for no reason and then follow the track with a Deputy Dawg impersonation deserves some f**king respect. And while I'm on the subject, if you crave a quality read. (You shouldn't be here for starters) Then get a copy of "Peter Green founder of Fleetwood Mac" by Martin Celmins. Whether you dig Green or not, it makes no odds, this book is a damn fine read.

"shall I tell you about my life, they say I'm a man of the world…………….."

So on HFB does Noel Gallagher lyrically bear his soul like Peter Green did on "Man of the World"? Well for the most part, yes he does. Noel has been no stranger to conveying personal paranoia, stresses, universal and internal psychological struggles in the past; on the likes of "Gas Panic!", "(Probably) All in the Mind" and "Part of the Queue" etc. And the theme of "mind struggles" runs throughout the album. On the opener "Everybody's on the Run" he sings "Sing to yourself and hold on" Beckett-esque, "when I can't go on, I go on." Next on "Dream On" he sings "I'm running out of Batteries" - on "If I Had a Gun" - "I'm waiting for the moment to find me"; then on "The Death of You and Me" he repeats the jaunty falsetto frivolity of "The Importance of Being Idle" and sings, "Hard times - life's getting faster, no one has the answer……..I can feel the storm clouds sucking up my soul". Lyrically "High Flying Birds" is tungsten, like Morrissey without the humour or Ian Curtis without the Old Testament; and if the album was entitled "Black Days, Black Dogs and Bleak Moments" no one would bat an eyelid.

Musically though, for the most part, and as far as my taste is concerned, High Flying Birds is simply chin scratching coffee table fodder. And this is vastly disappointing. The carefully crafted melancholia of the songs, and soulful plaintiveness of Noel's vocals on the likes of "(I wanna live in a dream in my) Record Machine" are backed either by very thin cold orchestrations, ordinaire brass supplements or tawdry droning synth washes, notably on the deeply uninspiring "AKA…What a Life" (which seems to follow the same vomitous change of direction the Courteeners made on their horrid "Falcon"). HFB for the most part is crying out for someone like Johnny Marr to embellish it with something magical. "AKA….Broken Arrow" would be the main candidate, the bone numbingly boring synth sounds needs eradicating and replaced with some, Johnny! And the main massive mystifying mystery on HFB is why on earth there are no acoustic tracks on HFB. And only one JOKE! This is Noel Gallagher! No acoustic tracks! No humour. Where did it all go wrong?

"High Flying Birds" concludes with the only majestic musically progressive moment on the LP "Stop the Clocks", which is a long time in the coming. HFB isn't a bad album by any stretch of the imagination; it features at its heart the introspective bearing of a single human soul - the PERSONAE Noel Gallagher - and that is all a great songwriter can truly offer. But musically High Flying Birds desperately lacks the warmth of a band to give Noel SOUL a HEART.

And finally……………………..I've put the Beady Eye LP in the High Flying Birds bag, and the High Flying Birds LP in the Beady Eye bag, given them both a f**kin good shake, and here it is "Different Birds / Still Flying" the best Oasis since "Definitely Maybe". Running order is:

1/ Four Letter Word.
2/ The Death of you and Me.
3/ Millionaire
4/ If I had a gun.
5/ Wind Up Dream
6/ Soldier Boys & Jesus Freaks
7/ Wigwam
8/ The Roller
9/ Dream On
10/ Bring the light
11/ (I Wanna Live in a Dream in my) Record Machine
12/ Stop the Clocks

All you need to get a copy of this album is £20 a cassette recorder & one of these……………………..I've got mine, now you get yours.............jobs a good-un.