That "cause this might be the end" straight into the instrumental break is such a brilliant moment

Okay, so the beginning of There She Blows is just the melody from the chorus of Bus Stop.

Agreed. This version is just noisy. Doesn't add anything.

It’s interesting what your saying about comparing this to his existing albums, because - although it’s early days - I couldn’t agree less about it being his weakest work, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, in my opinion every Noel album has had one or two tracks that were instantly skippable. On NGHFB, we had Dream On, which I can’t bare to endure. On CY, we had X-ray Eyes and The Mexican. On WBTM, most of the second half ruined what could have been an incredible album. Thus far, I’d strongly argue that none of Council Skies has tracks that are so overwhelmingly unlistenable, either in my opinion or the everyday punters likely opinion (time will tell though)

Secondly, the first three albums suffered from either too much “middle of the road” tracks, or had high highs and low lows. Circling back to NGHFB, there are some great tracks there, Everybody’s On The Run, Broken Arrow, Wrong Beach, among others, but the rest was either middle of the road, bland, or crap in the case of Dream On. CY had less middle of the road ones in my opinion, as I mostly enjoy that album, but as I mentioned before, it had 2 stinkers which bring it down. WBTM has a cracking first few tracks (although Fort Knox is highly overrated here), but the second half falls off a cliff when you reach “Be Careful What You Wish For”, and sucks until TMWBTM.

Noel’s albums seem to have gotten increasingly higher highs but lowers lows, particularly with WBTM. It’s frustrating for me to listen to that album when it has 5 of his best, 1 meh, then 5 of his worst tracks on it.

But for me thus far, Council Skies has no immediate skippable tracks. Sure it has its weaker moments, and the single choices are indeed baffling, but there’s no doubt at all from me that it’s his most solid album so far. The worst song is a 6 or 7 out of 10, and the best (DTTW) is a 10. The lows are not that low, and whereas there might be less “highs”, as an average it’s still better than his other albums in this way.

Still too early to decide where it places within them all, but it’s by far his most solid album for me due to its lack of truly bad tracks, and it’s decent amount of really good ones.

It's now on Spotify if you are in the US

I agree with all of the above

Prob World thats been and Gone the biggest suprise to me as no one really raved about demo. I refused to listen and am loving it now

The cover style is so similar to the Joshua Tree

Good catch
Just listened to the David Holmes remix of INGUT. Usually dont care for those but its great. Love the Silver and Gold part (another U2 ref?)

I've listened to it once and I like it but nothing new stands out. It has the feel of a grower album though. I can't hear anything super powerful or even catchy.

Noel was so close to deliver a perfect "Bacharach" album. so close !

My full review later

Interesting that my Apple Music lists We're Gonna get there in the end as the album closer, not a bonus track or anything. Indeed, its the best album closer there could be.

If you've purchased the album via the NG store should the thing be downloadable in full now? I've downloaded all the singles off there once they were listed and now there's a link saying download all but it's not working. I've checked previous purchases and the download all option doesn't work for those either.

I've deluxe vinyl and cd version coming but not expecting it until Monday, surely there should be a download link rather than having to pay up for that too to listen in car until can rip it on Monday?