Oasis: Don't Believe The Truth

On May 19th an historic day for cinema takes place when George Lucas releases the final Star Wars upon an expectant public. Aside from the assorted geeks and freaks who will be standing in line for tickets over a week before they go on sale, most casual fans will no doubt approach the sixth episode of the space opera with what can best be described as cautious optimism. Sure, they'd like to see something that reminds them of how they felt after watching The Empire Strikes Back as children, but they aren't going to hold their breath in anticipation for a movie that defies the previous two instalments and delivers something that has a little more going for it than simply looking like the most expensive episode of Babylon 5 ever made.

Still, no matter what happens when Revenge of the Sith finally hits screens this summer, the second-wave Star Wars fad has already taught us one key lesson: creative magic is not something that can be grown in a laboratory, and instead is a natural outgrowth of something much deeper than computer generated environments and slick marketing campaigns.

Sometimes the artist needs to take a step back and forget about how his product will be perceived by the masses, concentrating instead on what pleases HIM. After all, it is little surprise that some of the best art is created by people who have their backs against the wall - no one believes in them except themselves, therefore the only person they care about pleasing is the one who looks back at them in the mirror every day. Sometimes - MANY times - an artist will have an insular attitude to his work and in so doing end up touching millions of people.

It is somewhat ironic that in the same month as the sixth Star Wars film is born into the world, Oasis release their sixth studio album - Don't Believe The Truth. Like George Lucas, Noel and Liam Gallagher became the undisputed lords of a generation early in their career before tailing off to such a degree in future years that many people began to re-write their mental history book and question whether they really were that great in the first place.

They were.

And if you require proof of that you need only consider the countless articles, news reports, pointless feuds (Embrace, anyone?) and band break-ups that have taken place over the past eleven years and realise that, in spite of all that mostly forgettable madness, the one thing that truly has stayed fresh in people's minds is the music.

Definitely Maybe and What's the Story (Morning Glory?) have now gathered enough dust to prove that people were right to label them classics after only a few listens, and the b-sides from that period (lovingly incarcerated together on The Masterplan album) still do their rightful job of making people shake their heads in disbelief that such fan favourites as Headshrinker and Listen Up were confined to a place most bands reserve solely for throw-aways and remixes.

Listening to those songs now, you find yourself staring at a band without a care in the world. They're young, they're having fun, and what you're hearing is the soundtrack to it all.

This might give some insight into why the following albums failed to capture that spirit. By the time Be Here Now was being recorded there was too much expectancy from a world that felt it needed Oasis to keep it smiling, and in an attempt to please everyone - to go bigger, louder and longer than anyone else in the business - the band ended up delivering an empty promise. Add in the death of a princess (and with it the death of a shallow nation's fairytale idealism) around the time of the album's release and you have a recipe for disaster. The optimistic euphoria of an Oasis record amongst the carnage and tears of a grieving Britain was akin to having a series of Punch and Judy shows on the Tsunami-ravaged beaches of Asia.

No one was laughing, and Cool Britannia had come to an end.

After seeing in the new Millennium with Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, an album that again was out of sink with the national mood (Giants has a dreariness that makes you wonder whether Sony should have given away free Prozac vouchers with every copy), it appeared Oasis had finally run out of steam. Fans were asking the Gallagher brothers to re-establish a relationship with their cocaine dealer, and Robbie Williams was putting out scathing witticisms about the band's demise that even Noel seemed to lack the energy to answer.

2002's Heathen Chemistry - the first album featuring new members Gem and Andy Bell - was, despite its inconsistency and patchiness, a definite hint of light at the end of the tunnel. The biggest bright spots were the three Liam-penned songs, which possessed a freshness and vibrancy that his older brother was beginning to lack. Songbird in particular had a breezy innocence that could make even the most cold hearted bastard blush at how fluffy it made his insides feel.

Still, Heathen Chemistry on the whole was not enough to make the masses count down the days until the band would return to the studio to begin work on a follow up. I myself greeted the news that Oasis was recording a new album with mild indifference (and bare in mind there was a time when I would break out in girly laughter at the news of imminent Oasis material), especially after the sessions with Death in Vegas were binned because "the songs just weren't there". Though there was some relief when Dave Sardy was revealed to be taking over the control desk (and NOT the band, as many feared).

And so to 2005. It's a decade on from Morning Glory, the Loaded-reading, beer-guzzling lads who sang along drunkenly to Wonderwall on many a pub jukebox are now men, Coldplay are the latest flavour of the month band to have its collective penis pleasured by a fickle media, and Oasis finally have their new album ready for the critics who are no doubt praying it will be another nail in the band's coffin, just so they can use the pre-determined tagline "Don't Believe The Hype" in their articles.

Yet it turns out they may need to rethink their bile and vitriol, because Don't Believe The Truth is not only a significant return to form, but also presents us with the sound of a band that has finally shaken off the shackles of expectancy and pressure, and has instead made an album with the confidence and fluidity that makes the previous few efforts sound even more like the musical equivalent of trying to swim the Atlantic wearing a straight jacket and inflatable flares.

It's not perfect (few albums are) but there are less areas here in which your ears become bogged down and tired. There is more flow, tighter production and, above all else, some damn fine songs.

Oasis have always been known for kicking off their albums in style (even the dreadful Giants had the joyous two-headed monster that is f***in' In The Bushes), and Andy Bell's Turn Up The Sun provides an intro that sounds nothing like anything Oasis has recorded before. This opening landscape is painted with lightly ringing guitars that swing and sway like a field of poppies, which then turns into a more familiar No Man's Land of muddy filth and barbed wire fences as everything cranks up a notch and we are greeted with our first sight - erm, sound - of Liam Gallagher's authoritative drawl.

It's funny, no matter how tired Oasis threatened to sound in the past they always had a get-out clause in Liam's truly unique vocals, and when he sings "come on! Turn up the Sun, turn it up for ev-ery-one!" on this we feel morally obligated to jump up and open the curtains.

This song has the lumbering power of Columbia, rolling along like an asteroid heading for earth - there's no point trying to run away from it because you won't escape its shadow. And then it disintegrates back into the sound that it started off with, leaving you wondering if you've just experienced Oasis' interpretation of a Bruce Banner Hulk-out and reverse metamorphosis.

Don't make Liam angry, you wouldn't like him when he's angry.

One of the many disheartening things about the last couple Oasis albums was Noel Gallagher's penchant for putting his own vocals on several tracks. Unable to approach his brother's attitude and swagger, these songs would end up sounding like either yawn-educing dad rock plodders (Where Did It All Go Wrong, Force Of Nature) or sickly, overproduced fluff (Sunday Morning Call). Certainly, rather than hand back vocal duties almost solely to Our Kid, it seems Noel is now the official narrator of his own authorship (Liam sings exclusively on just one of Gallagher senior's numbers here).

Fortunately, Noel does an admirable job on his vocal performances, the first of which is Mucky Fingers, a driving, repetitive beat interspersed with Gem's electric-era Dylan harmonica and a set of lyrics so scathingly poisonous you could bottle them up and sell them to Rent a Kill "you get your mucky fingers burnt/ you get your truth from the lies you have heard/and all your plastic believers will leave us and they won't return". It overstays its welcome by a minute or so, but is still a decent effort.