Album Review: Dig Out Your Soul by Oasis

Nearly 15 years since they first swaggered and sneered their way into the public consciousness, the Gallaghers still polarise opinion like no other. Mere mention of O*s*s in a blog prompts hundreds of posts, many asking why people are still interested. The answer is simple. As bona fide rock stars, no one else has come along and, as Rio Ferdinand would put it, 'taken up the mantelpiece'.

Full Review >>

There's more to Oasis's oeuvre than What's The Story Morning Glory, but no album since their 1995 hit has been as consistent. Every subsequent disc has had its great tunes and more than a few bombs, and those missteps prevented the band from becoming the next Beatles, whom they so badly wanted to be. While they squandered their chance to become the new Lennon-McCartney a long time ago, their new disc, Dig Out Your Soul, is about as close to What's The Story greatness as they can get.

Full Review >>

Do Oasis’ Liam and Noel Gallagher suffer from a morbid, and quite unnecessary, fear that we might forget how much they love the Beatles? The British quintet’s latest disc Dig Out Your Soul not only features Ringo’s son Zak Starkey on drums but also at one point includes a snippet of John Lennon talking. Both the heftily rocking first single, ”The Shock of the Lightning,” and the airier, more psychedelic song ”Falling Down” are fab enough to have appeared on one of Oasis’ terrific first two albums. But qualitywise, most of the tracks here are more ”Bungalow Bill” than ”Eleanor Rigby.” B?Download This: Listen to ”The Shock of the Lightning” on the band’s MySpace page .

Full Review >>

It's hard not to be impressed with the way Noel Gallagher has managed to turn Oasis' apparently permanent state of musical stasis into a matter of class pride. "It's a working-class thing ... I'm not an experimenter," he recently remarked, as if making interesting music was an unacceptable capitulation to bourgeois mores, like joining a snooty golf club.

Full Review >>

Review Summary: Dig Out Your Soul doesn’t have the same anthemic quality as every other Oasis album, and truthfully never attempts to. For almost a decade now, it has been customary this side of the Atlantic to hail every new Oasis album as the band’s best effort since 1996’s iconic (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory; even the much-maligned Be Here Now, though it was lauded at the time, won by default, being as it was the only album since 1996’s iconic (What’s The Story?} Morning Glory. In truth, the band never really recovered from the fall-out endured amid the coke-fuelled haze of Be Here Now- ever the crowd-pleasers, the Gallagher brothers more or less dug their heels in and concentrated on satisfying their still immense fanbase without much regard for the wider world.

Full Review >>

Brit-Pop vets create a wall of boringFor all the band’s outlandish bragging, Oasis has never shown as much nerve in its sound, preferring to polish the rough edges and refine aggressions rather than seek new territory. This neo-conservatism worked in the past when it uncovered a magical melody, and the newfound band democracy of 2005’s Don’t Believe The Truth pointed toward a potential second act. Each member contributes songs here as well, Noel Gallagher’s “The Shock Of The Lightning” and “Falling Down” coming closest to the classic Oasis sound.

Full Review >>