Serving as the b-side to new Noel Gallagher single Dream On is this: The first taste of Noel's much-touted collaboration with electronica outfit Amorphous Androgynous. Shoot A Hole Into The Sun is a bewildering medley of sky-piercing strings, funky basslines and guitar twangs that seem to echo back through all history. Think Primal Scream's monumental Screamadelica album, and you'll be on the right track.
It's an epic, sprawling trippy uber-psychedelic reworking of previous single If I Had A Gun and is pretty much the sort of stuff to straight-on blow your mind. It's movie-like in its expansive grandeur, and skillfully keeps all the integrity of Noel's lyrics and songwriting talent whilst twinning them with a genuinely horizon-broadening backing. This is no remix, more a first tantalising glimpse of just how brilliant the second Noel solo LP is surely going to be.
One of the unavoidable truths of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds project is that the album sounds a lot like Oasis. Of course, this is a very good thing, as Oasis – it’s agreed – are brilliant. And what’s more, the album sounds like on-form Oasis. It’s Noel’s songwriting talent at its best and in The Death of You And Me, we saw a gleam of everything that marks him out as one of Britain’s most enduring talents.
Dream On, it has to be said though, feels like another retread of the stompy piano format of The Importance of Being Idle. And whereas The Death of You And Me – with its triumphant horn riffs – felt gloriously vital, Noel’s new single feels a little like a perfectly acceptable but overly-safe attempt to re-emulate it. For my money, album opener Everybody’s On The Run would make a far better single – emotional, big singalong chorus, it’s everything we go to Noel’s songwriting for, and it delivers in bulk.
Between the dance-inspired stylings of What A Life and the stomp of The Death of You And Me, it is new single If I Had A Gun that is perhaps best representative of Noel Gallagher's solo album as a whole.
Striking out for a beautifully melodic standpoint between his Wonderwall glory days and the most classic, anthemic of choruses, it is a testament to Noel's continuing songwriting talents writ large.
The real charm is that at heart, the song is so simple, so effortless in what it attempts; yet within a few listens it already sounds like something ingrained into your memory for a decade or more. Noel is the eternal everyman, the voice-piece of a nation - just as he was in the 90s, so to now, still plugging away the plight of the normal man. He speaks from the heart, to the heart - and in the slow, methodic strum of If I Had A Gun, he makes that connection every time.
As the tail end of 2011 sweeps round, we can safely say Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds easily has a place within our Top 10 albums of the year; and from an artist with a catalogue already so peerlessly good as Noel/Oasis, that stands as some achievement.
If I Had A Gun... is released on the 26th December accompanied by exclusive b-side I’d Pick You Every Time.
It’s not often you go to a gig where the crowd feels more like a rowdy mass of baying football fanatics than a collective of discerning music listeners. But such was the reception that met Oasis man gone solo Noel Gallagher as he took to the stage amidst the quintessentially British decadence of North London’s Kentish Town Forum.
Noel stands at that crossroads that comes to all middle-aged rock icons: rest on your laurels, lapping up the royalties and recognition of your glory days, or continue to push yourself, continue to strive among a wash of chart acts half your age to prove your continued relevance. It’s a daunting prospect at the best of times, even more so when your legacy consists of such monuments of popular culture as Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back In Anger.
Against all the odds though, Noel has turned out something of a winner – his High Flying Birds album feels energized, vital, a natural progression of the songwriting backbone that held Oasis aloft for so many years. The new tracks slot easily alongside old favourites like Supersonic, a confident extension of the ‘Noel Brand’, and one the crowd were more than happy to indulge.
With all the drama, bluster and hype of the inter-Gallagher rivalry swept away, High Flying Birds feels freer and more confident than Oasis have done for a long time. Gone is the one-upmanship of egos between the brothers, replaced by the simple drive to play a great show. And judging by the hearty, beer-fuelled sing-along to Half The World Away, Noel’s got that one sorted.
With Liam Gallagher’s poorly conceived Beady Eye project already slipping away from the public consciousness on a slippery slope of mediocre sales and even worse chart positions (the less said about that dreary Reading & Leeds set the better), the baton falls to Noel – the man traditionally hailed as the more talented of the brothers. That said, the penchant for bonkers band names clearly runs in the family, first Beady Eye, now Noel Gallagher’s... High Flying Birds...
Birds aside, this album’s high flying ambitions are writ all over it. Opener Everybody's On The Run is Noel at his very best, cut free from the limitations of his former band to truly indulge as both songwriter and solo musician. The result is a far richer, more involving level of production than Oasis ever really entertained – with lush, sweeping strings, the song rides on a Bond Theme-esque level of cinematic scope.
Dream On is pure Oasis throwback, revelling in the kind of retro stompy piano chords that worked so well in The Importance of Being Idle. The trouble is, here, Dream On sounds like the tired leftovers – the dregs that have been left swilling around Noel’s brain for rather too long. Of course, with a man of such considerable talents as Noel, even here, the weaker points on High Flying Birds are still more than a match for any of the young upstart bands who all wish for a fraction of the success Oasis had. Noel Gallagher, the original prince of Brit-pop, and still the best.
Truth be told, the album’s greatest asset – sounding like Oasis – is also its greatest problem. There’s not a dud track on here, but equally, a great deal of the record, tracks like If I Had A Gun and Record Machine are nothing we haven’t already heard before a hundred times. Where High Flying Birds really shines is on gems like the horn-riffing fun of Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks and the stately elegance of Stop The Clocks. There’s a beauty in these songs, a soaring sense of some part of Noel’s spirit, trapped away inside him, finally set free.
The most fascinating moment here though is without a doubt lead single What A Life. Eschewing everything else on the record, the song jumps into a psychedelic mix of groove-driven beats and relentless piano chords – it’s not quite Noel Gallagher-does-house-music, but it’s getting on for that. Fellow Manc legend Ian Brown has made a career out of penning weird, wonderful tracks like this and it’s refreshing to see Noel walking the same path; unafraid to push the boundaries – something which proved the downfall of Liam’s stale, unadventurous Beady Eye project.
What’s even more promising is that High Flying Birds is just the start. Not one to rest on his laurels, Noel has already recorded an accompanying album, a collaboration with electronica outfit Amorphous Androgynous (try saying that one when you’ve had a few beers). The group previously transformed the Oasis single Falling Down into a 22 minute exploration into the very limits of sonic innovation, so things look promising.
Situated at the heart of High Flying Birds, What A Life serves as the appetite-whetter, so to speak, the budding shoots that hint at the experimentation yet to come - that moment we’ve all been waiting for when Noel will once again blossom into the flower of British songwriting perfection that over the past two decades has given some of the greatest songs of all time.
