Highlights: Flick Of The Finger, Soul Love, Ballroom Figured
If you sit down to write
an album review and immediately feel you are not really up to it (after all, what
is there to say about Rat Farm other
than that is another perfectly serviceable Meat Puppets LP?), don’t just drop
the whole thing and do something else. Sit back and review the new Liam
Gallagher album. There’s a special kind of perverted joy to the task, and I
still find it irresistible.
The catch here is that
the new Beady Eye album was produced by Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio). The first
thing you would expect is something inventive and adventurous, but while BE (that’s just a wrong title, right? I
would have much preferred Bee) does
sound more interesting than Different
Gear, Still Speeding, the change is hardly all that dramatic. Dave Sitek is
reduced to playing David Fincher in The
Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. They both tried to change something that,
quite simply, could not be changed. There’s nothing you can do about a sappy
script or a bloated charisma.
But all that said, I
still like this stuff. I’m 26 now, but I’m still touched by the acoustic
prettiness of “Ballroom Figured” that doesn’t have an original bone in it. I’m
intrigued by the lyrics of the otherwise unremarkable “Second Bite Of The Apple”.
I still get a major kick out of the anthemic “Flick Of The Finger” that is
Oasis all over again (but of course). I can still get in the intense and
intensely generic groove of “Face The Crowd”. I’m still moved by the trite
optimism of the closing “Start Anew”. I can even forgive the banal “Don’t
Bother Me” with its four minutes of electronic waste. It just works; still,
against all odds.
You know exactly what to
expect. You know the songwriting is going to be derivative. You know a
Gallagher is someone who isn't bothered with artistic growth because he just thinks he is so great. You
know Liam is the sort of artist who will easily say that he won’t do it again
if his new work fails (which he did). All rather pathetic, really, and all
rather enjoyable. Whatever.
7/10
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