Remember the Oasis vs Blur wars of the Nineties, stoked by greedy record executives and record stores? It all seems so pointless now — just as it did then. The news that Oasis were releasing a new album this year had to make one wonder whether it would just be a lukewarm attempt to recapture days of glory past.
And on a fast first listen, Don’t Believe the Truth (Sony BMG) seems bland, even devoid of inspiration. Even the cover is bleak and boring. But delve deeper into the music to find Oasis have matured well, building on their past experience to create nuanced music with a retro-rock, almost Beatles-esque feel, with all but three tracks written by Liam or Noel Gallagher.
Opener Turn Up the Sun and Part of the Queue sneer survival-in-this-crazy-world lyrics atop subdued but insistent guitars. Tracks such as Love Like a Bomb and the swaggering Lyla are classic Oasis: offbeat semi-romantic musings perched over laid-back melodies with perky guitars that never overpower. The Importance of Being Idle is as existential (“I sold my soul for the second time”) and decadent (“I begged my doctor for one more line”) as a middleweight pop-rock single can be — offset by the optimistic A Bell Will Ring (“The sun will shine on you again”, happily).
Good ol’ rock’n’roll surfaces on The Meaning of Soul and the gritty, slightly deranged Mucky Fingers. Let There Be Love closes the album with its slow cocktail of sadness, hope and ponderable lyrics (“Who kicked a hole in the sky so the heavens would cry over me?”).
And so, what could have been a disastrous comeback becomes a meaningful, if slightly cynical, take on life and love, and one can almost remember why it was important to vote for Oasis, not Blur. Or was it the other way round?