Beady Eye was not a bad band. Au contraire. If you harbour a weak spot for Oasis, aim at an objective viewpoint and take a break from you loyalty to the Chief Noel, it proves to be difficult to not like their two albums, however, a lot of Oasis aficionados managed exactly that.
As You Were is Liam Gallagher’s new album.
Not unlike Beady Eye’s oeuvre, it is neither better nor worse than most of Oasis’ inoffensive emissions.
As You Were got all the key ingredients: Great singing, self-referential tongue-in cheek references, delusions of The Beatles grandeur (helter skeltering – and no, he couldn’t resist rhyming it with a plea to the Stones to give him “shelter”) that happiness is still a warm gun), 60ies and 70ies standards, lovely platitudes delivered in our favourite motormouth’s signature style, pizzazz and big tunes, pop charm and sensibilities, surreal and sometimes borderline outworn musings on the need to be and, a novum of sorts, at times deliberately highlighting motormouth and master of the bonmot Liam’s fragile and softer side.
As You Were is a personal album, with each tune seeming to be aimed at getting things of his chest, aimed at someone or something concrete and getting his side of the story out there.
Having producers Greg Kurstin, polishing what could be perceived as standards, and Dan Grech-Marguerat, adding bluesy elan to some ditties, on board pays dividends as helps evade predictable parameters and adds punch and sharpness to the recordings, think of a maintaining the merits of a classic 60s/70s album with contemporary state of the art production.
An album that makes us look forward to witnessing Liam’s incarnation in a live environment on these shores in January 2017.
A special box set of As You Were will also be available. It compiles a coloured 12” vinyl of the album, an exclusive 7” format of For What It’s Worth, a print designed by Klaus Voorman (the artist behind The Beatles’ Revolver album cover) and additional collectors’ items.
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