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Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

Not a full review but just a first impression on Noel's new work.

I am an Oasis fan, but I'm also very critical about them. In fact, on all of their records I can find some flaws. The main is that there was always for me a skipping track on every single Oasis-related (counting Liam's band in) album - even on Morning Glory. And I admit that even though I consider Noel the genius of melody. And now here we go, Noel's first solo album. No filler at all. Everything in its place.

From the epic start of Everybody's On The Run, through rock-anthemic quality of Dream On, classical oasisy ballad If I Had a Gun, brilliant jazzy country of The Death of You and Me, yet another big anthem being Record Machine (the last part makes you sing on top of your lungs), surprising disco-influenced brilliant What a Life!, set of mid tempo rockers (Soldier Boys - a protest song!, Broken Arrow with efortlessly flowing beat and melody an huge chorus and The Wrong Beach where I especially like the slightly fuzzy guitar - ending with yet another epic - Stop the Clocks.

Brilliant from start to finish, one can feel guilty when trying to think about the worst song of the bunch - there is no such a thing. I like the production (a lil bit poppy compared to Oasis records and maybe that's a good thing), I like the artwork, the lenght of the tracks and the whole album is perfect timed.

Truly, maybe this is written hastily, just after the album went public, but I just don't see any reason why shouldn't I call it the best Noel album - the best measure for that is probably that this record could and will atract many non-oasis listeners and hopefully stand the test of time and be a testament to Noel's ability as a creator of melodies.

live forever

It is a B-side to "Four Letter Word" - ladies and gentleman, Beady Eye's debut album, Different Gear, Still Speeding, is coming on 23rd February in Japan, 28th Feb in Europe and 1st March in the US. I like the vid and the track is very fine as well.

Tonight thank God...

I've known this song since I was a little boy. Always on my list of top Christmas tunes. And there was a line in the song - one sentence, nothing more - that hit me very, very hard. Being much younger myself I didn't know who sang the song, I didn't know who sang that particular line at the time. Now I know. But even then I did know it was something special, something big, something emocional.

...Tonight thank God it's them instead of you.

Now this singer is one of my favourites, one of the biggest rock stars of all times. It doesn't matter. Just listen to these guys, listen to that line. And think a little about it all. Thank God.

All the best to you
Tol

Well, it got me!



And yes, The Beatles are finally available on iTunes! Apple beware, your servers may go down...