Maturity always seemed an alien concept to
Oasis
. The brothers
Gallagher
may have worshiped music made before their birth but there was no respect to their love: they stormed the rock & roll kingdom with no regard for anyone outside themselves, a narcissism that made perfect sense when they were young punks, as youth wears rebellion well, but the group's trump card was how their snottiness was leveled by their foundation in classic pop. This delicate balance was thrown out of whack after the phenomenal success of 1995's
(What's the Story) Morning Glory?
, when the group sunk into a pit of excess that they couldn't completely escape for almost a full decade. When
did begin to re-emerge on 2005's
Don't Believe the Truth
they sounded like journeymen, purveyors of no-frills rock & roll.
All this makes the wallop of 2008's
Dig Out Your Soul
all the more bracing. Colorful and dense where
was straightforward,
finds
reconnecting to the churning psychedelic undercurrents in their music, sounds that derive equally from mid-period
Beatles
and early
Verve
. This is heavy, murky music, as dense, brutal, and loud as
has ever been, building upon the swagger of
Don't Believe
and containing not a hint of the hazy drift of their late-'90s records: it's what
Be Here Now
would have sounded like without the blizzard of cocaine and electronica paranoia.
doesn't have much arrogance, either, as
' strut has mellowed into an off-hand confidence, just like how
Noel Gallagher
's hero worship has turned into a distinct signature of his own, as his
Beatlesque
songs sound like nobody else's, not even the
. His only real rival at this thick, surging pop is his brother
Liam
, who has proven a sturdy, if not especially flashy songwriter with a knack for candied
Lennonesque
ballads like
"I'm Outta Time."
To appreciate what
does, turn to
Gem Archer
's
"To Be Where There's Life"
and
Andy Bell
"The Nature of Reality,"
which are enjoyable enough
-by-numbers, but
's numbers resonate, getting stronger with repeated plays, as the best
songs always do.
But, as it always does,
belongs to
, who pens six of the 11 songs on
, almost every one of them possessing the same sense of inevitability that marked his best early work. Best among these are the titanic stomp of
"Waiting for the Rapture"
and the quicksilver kaleidoscope of
"The Shock of the Lightning,"
a pair of songs that rank among his best, but the grinding blues-psych of
"Bag It Up"
and gently cascading
"The Turning"
aren't far behind, either. These have the large, enveloping melodies so characteristic of this work and what impresses is that he can still make music that sounds not written, but unearthed. These six tunes are
Noel
's strongest since
Morning Glory
-- so strong it's hard not to wish he wrote the whole LP himself -- but what's striking about
is how its relentless onslaught of sound proves as enduring as the tunes. This is the sound of a mature yet restless rock band: all the brawn comes from the guitars, all the snarl comes from
Liam Gallagher
's vocals, who no longer sounds like a young punk but an aged, battered brawler who wears his scars proudly, which is a sentiment that can apply to the band itself. They're now survivors, filling out the vintage threads they've always worn with muscle and unapologetic style. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine