Oasis: Dig Out Your Soul

So I'm one of those Oasis fans from way back when they hit the States. Hell, I even liked Be Here Now, and no one is supposed to have liked that album. So when they've got a new CD out, I'm hitting the stores.

That brings us to their new CD, Dig Out Your Soul. As usual, Noel Gallagher, the older brother wrote most of the songs -- and generally the better of the songs. And the music sounds like lots of their older stuff. It's full of mid tempo power ballad type songs, and it lacks the sonic excess of much of their post (What's the Story)Morning Glory works.

The Gallagher brothers have always welcomed comparisons to The Beatles, so to play into their wishes, let's go with a Beatles analogy here. My understanding of The Beatles mythology is that Let It Be was actually supposed to be Get Back with "get back" being a return to live rock basics after the excesses of The White Album. It was supposed to be an album of music that they could go back out and perform live on the road.

That never happened.

Dig Out Your Soul, much like their previous Don't Believe The Truth, is supposed to be a return by Oasis to their earlier works and away from the Be Here Now excesses. And for the most part, they succeed. Not as well as they succeeded with Don't Believe The Truth. There's no "Lyla" on this CD. But I think it works.

"The Shock of the Lightning" is a nice driving little rock number which references nicely their earlier works. "Waiting for the Rapture" is a standard rock number which is heavy on the distorted guitar. "(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady" seemed, to me, to rip off a lot of "Rocky Raccoon" in the use of the percussion and the beat. I kept waiting for Paul McCartney to break into song, but it never happened. And "Falling Down" goes back to some of their sonic sound experiments and Liam Gallagher's weak voice has never sounded better than it does here.

The CD is heavy on groove. There are lots of strong moments that echo back to their earlier work, especially those songs I've mentioned above. But it's primarily a mid tempo rocker lacking some of the soaring anthem moments of Definitely Maybe, Morning Glory, or Be Here Now -- which I liked.

Ultimately, I like the CD. The songs by Liam Gallagher are kind of weak, and it would be a better work if Noel Gallagher had written the entire thing. But the parts of it that work really work. And there are more parts that work than those that don't.