Oasis – Dig Out Your Soul

I’ll get the comparison with Definitely Maybe out of the way early. It’s not as good, obviously.
But, the first half of Dig Out Your Soul is the most exhilarating thing they’ve done in 10 years.
Raucous stomper Bag It Up, a song my mum would describe as a “racket”, gets things moving. The second, The Turning looks like meandering along harmlessly until Liam leers “So cumon, shake your rag doll baby” as only Liam can.
Waiting for the Rapture, my favourite song on the album, continues the in-your-face feel. A foot-thumping intro, the definitively Oasis elongated vowel rhyme: “A big love to fall down from the sky / She put an apple in my eye” in which Liam sounds like he’s right back where he belongs, almost eating the mic, and a whole lot more in three psychedelic minutes. This is the band at their best, when it sounds there’s a fight going on between vocals and instruments.
The first single off the album, The Shock of the Lightning, sounds like a beefed-up Strokes racer, but that’s no problem.
Liam then joins the songwriting stakes, and threatens to steal the show from his big brother. Sampling a John Lennon interview, I’m Outta Time is a beautifully wistful ballad, Liam’s delivery convincing you that he’s really opening his heart.
Next comes the relentless shuffling rhythm of (Get Off Your) High Horse Lady. Ruined slightly by the affected vocals, it would have been better as an instrumental. They give you a much-needed 30 seconds at the end to get your breath back, but unfortunately the album doesn’t really recover its momentum from there.
The rest is pretty forgettable. Bassist Andy Bell’s contribution The Nature of Reality, which sounds like a one-dimensional AC/DC rip-off, is worse than that. Liam rescues things with the atmospheric Soldier On, a fitting finale to an album that shows the Gallagher brothers trying to hide their growing lyrical maturity behind good old rock n’ roll tunes. Who else could malign “we live a dying dream”, and follow it with “if you know what I mean”?