You have no reason to believe me, and perhaps, neither should you. But when the tracklist is announced within the upcoming months I can finally go I TOLD YOU GUYS SO. All of the rumours and guys who've been to the recording studio stories are pure bullcrap, pure fabrication. I'm a dear friend of producer Dave Sardy and he did invite me to the mixing studio to hear the new album from Oasis. I'm a fan, and he knows it. Even though I'm mostly a fan of their older stuff. I hooked up on these boards some months ago and finally gets to post something useful. Now I didn't get to meet with anybody in the group. It was only me and Dave in the studio, very late on Tuesday evening. He played me the album from start to finish while we very talking about things ranging from working to Oasis to the job of being a record producer. I worked as an intern to Dave a few years ago and we've been kinda friends since. You see, being a record producer is my big dream. Anyway, the new album is as of now untitled although varies titles has been under discussion. It's a good album, guys. Perhaps their best since Be Here Now (extremely underrated) although it does include some bad, forgettable songs. My biggest surprise is that Noel has written 7(!) of the 10 songs on the album. Gem, Andy and Liam has written 1 each. Insane. Many of Liam's efforts are going to end up as b-sides. I didn't get to listen to them. It's like a collection of each of their albums up to this date; there's some Standing on the shoulder of giants in there, but mostly it's Morning Glory meets DBTT.

Enjoy...


01 . History - If you know your Oasis you know that the title Slide Away on Definitely Maybe was knicked from a song on The Verve's first album that was released one year before. Maybe Noel has done the same thing here, as the opening track on Oasis' as of now untitled 7th album has the same song title as one of the tracks on A Northern Soul. Oasis usually opens their albums with strong rock songs as in Hello, The Hindu Times or Rock N Roll Star, but this album opens with very The Verve-like strings(!), an acoustic guitar enters around 30 seconds and eventually Noel starts singing. Powerful ballad with the lyrics going "Throughout our history, we were always the ones to count on, we were always the ones to root for. In my life, that's our history, a beautiful, everlasting melody, through the sweet neverending symphony that's life". Noel gives his best vocal performance ever with this song. One of the best on the album. It will blow you away.

02. Forever - Ballad written by Noel and sung by Liam, with Noel on backing vocals. Very reminiscent of Stop Crying Your Heart Out with hopeful lyrics, beautiful piano intro and choirs(!). Strong song, but it feels with two big ballads back-to-back. This one will probably not be performed live due to Liam's voice.

03. Stop the Clocks - It's written by Noel and he also takes lead vocals. Apparantly, he's been saying this is his best song ever. As I said, I'm not the biggest fan but this is not a very good song. The acoustics sounds like Wonderwall with some strings and pianos in the background. Lyrically not very strong, and Noel is no Liam when it comes to singing. Unremarkable tune. Take my advice and don't get your hopes up for this one. According to Dave, Noel himself said it could probably end up as a b-side instead which is proof he himself isn't very happy with it, but for now, it's on the album.

04. The Boy with the Blues - This baby is written by Liam (as you all know) and performed by him as well. The arrangement is much like the very underwhelming Lord Don't Slow Me Down with an acoustic intro followed by electric guitars and drums, and overall very retro 60's sounding rock/pop tune. Liam sings it with his usual arrogance, but the lyrics are pretty weak. Contrary to what some idiot said on this board this is not going to be the first single, but might be the second or third. I didn't get to meet Liam or Noel as I said but according to Dave, Liam is more than happy with this one, thinking it his best song to date. It's not. Songbird is still Nr. 1 for me. One of the songs strong virtues is the awesome drumming from Zak Starkey, who on the last album got the thankless job to drum like Ringo but on this song really gets to shine, and proove what a great drummer he is.

05. Shine - I laughed when I first saw that one of the songs was to be called Shine; a word that's been mentioned a hundred times in various Noel-lyrics only because it's Liam favourite word to sing. Liam sings and Noel has written it, and it's quite nice actually, if forgettable and unremarkable.

06. On Your Own - Not a very inspired song title due to the fact that both Blur and The Verve has (very good songs) with the same title, but apparantly Oasis are no worse. Noel has written this one to, with Liam singin. The themes are about being lazy, doing nothing and how important and nice it can be to be on your own sometimes, a theme sung about in older Oasis-songs most notably Listen Up and The Importance of Being Idle. Nice song, sorta vintage Oasis. This one has a full orchestra to it, with trumpets and strings, makin' it sound kinda like Round Are Way.

07. Train Station Blues - This is the worst song on the album which came to no surprise as I found out Gem Archer wrote this one. Great guy, but the weakest lyricist in the group responsible for such lousy, forgettable tunes as Hung in a Bad Place and A Bell Will Ring. This is his weakest yet with the chorus going "Train station blues, take a train where you choose, singing your blues, carry the news", with about the same arrangement as Mott the Hopple's All The Young Dudes which of course the lines "Carry the news" is a, not too subtle, nod to. Oh, and Liam sings.

08. All Those Memories - Andy Bell's only song on the album, with Liam singing it and giving his best vocal performance in years. This is Oasis dipping it's toes into the Shoegaze-genre which should come as no surprise since Andy was a member of Ride during the 90's. Soft, epic song filled with pianos and strings occasionally explodes with heavy guitars, and a drum intro that's quite similiar to the one on the Ride-song Dreams Burn Down. The single best song on the album if you ask me. Not very Oasis-like, but it's always good to see this band experimenting and getting their inspiration other places than 60's pop music.

09. The Lonely Souls - Written and performed by Liam. Dave joked and described this as Born on a Different Cloud Part 2 with Liam once again taking bits and pieces of John Lennon-lyrics and write them into his songs. This songs has Some call it magic, Love is the answer and You got to let it go, all lyrical content from Lennon's song Mind Games incorparated into it. 6-minute, quite dark and psychadelic tune and yes, very similiar to Born on a Different Cloud. If you ask me this is one of the weakest on the album, at least lyrically, and go figure why. Liam should have more respect for Lennon than to, once again, rip off his lyrics. Good guitar solo though.

10. I Wanna Live In A Dream In My Record Machine - The bookend to the album which as of now has 10 songs. People are really expecting something special here as Noel has been describing this as a long, psychadelic Champagne Supernova-thing. It's being written by him and both Liam and Noel shares the vocals, although Noel probably sings more of it. Although it's a good song it's definitely not up there with Champagne Supernova. It's got a long outro with a beauitful piano and strings before it stops at, and this is exact, 7:32. According to Noel it's too long to be a single and probably, just as Let There Be Love, are not going to be performed live.