The Gallagher Brothers

Different Gear, Still Speeding  (2011 – Beady Eye) After the end of Oasis, Liam Gallagher (along with a most other members of the group) reorganized into the band known as Beady Eye.  This first album shows that Liam was the rocker of the band (carried on in songs like “Four Letter Word”  and “Standing on the Edge of Noise”) as well as the one who loved to hearken back to old style British rock and especially the worship of John Lennon (e.g., “The Roller” and “Bring the Light”).    

BE (2013 – Beady Eye) Beady Eye’s second (and final following their dissolution) album has a much broader amount of production and instrumentation and more cohesive of a sound.  The first half of the album still has their rocking beat kicking off with a big brass blast on “Flick of the Finger” that culminates of all things with an oddly powerful anti-establishment quote from a play about John-Paul Marat.  There are a number of slower more acoustic based and dreamy numbers in the second half that hearken back to Morning Glory, especially the closer “Off at the Next Exit” which is my favorite on the album.  For variety some other band members write and sing with some odd results.

As You Were (2017 – Liam Gallagher) Liam’s solo album stands up quite well to scrutiny–just a lot of good melodic rock songs and ballads that hearken back to Oasis’s best stuff. There are a couple of stand-outs. The opener “Wall of Glass” has a pounding in-your-face guitar rock verse tempered by a stomping gospel backed chorus that works quite well; while “Chintown” has a gentle acoustic over a sweet almost lilting melody. The rest are variations between the two and make for a nice album with the more up tempo stuff in the beginning and calmer melodic closers at the end (especially the beautifully chorded “I’ve All I Need”). Also interesting is the song “For What It’s Worth” an obvious (and seemingly unaccepted) apology to Noel for their longstanding feud.

Why Me? Why Not? (2019 – Liam Gallagher) Liam’s second solo foray is just as good as his first if not better in some ways. Great melodies and rock sound that hearkens back to the Oasis heyday and its 60s throwbacks (“Why Me. Why Not?”, “Alright Now”) but also some surprisingly bouncy songs (“Now that I’ve Found You”) that are fun. “One of Us” is a favorite of mine.

C’mon You Know (2022 – Liam Gallagher) This third solo album for Liam Gallagher has a lot of similarities to his both his solo works and signature songs on the later Oasis albums. It seems a very introspective album in terms of lyrics but there’s not anything that is a particularly catchy standout song. However, you can’t help but smile and shake your head at his famously unabashed self-identification with his sixties musical heroes: opening with a children’s chorus which is an intentional copy of the Rolling Stones, throwing in Beatles lyric references (“Now I know how many holes it takes”), or filming a London rooftop video for “Better Days”

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds  (2012 – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) Unlike his brother’s rough and stripped down work in the new band Beady Eye, Noel Gallagher focused his post-Oasis interests on a project of layered flowing but upbeat ballads with flourishes of brass and wall-of-sound electric punches. (The songs follow very obviously from his Oasis signature songs like “Magic Pie” and the Don’t Believe the Truth album).   I like the shuffling “The Death of You and Me”, the more rocking “AKA…What a Life!” and the dreamy opener “Everybody’s on the Run”.

Chasing Yesterday  (2015 – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) The tunes on the second album from Noel’s group are a bit more melodic and therefore more of an enjoyable listen over time.  Again the songs have lots of interesting elements and flourishes but they add more rock flair than before and flow well with Noel’s smooth delivery.  There are not really any sing-along songs but many interesting lyrical phrases stand out and even punctuate the feel of some songs.   I especially like “Riverman”, “The Girl with X-Ray Eyes”, “The Dying of the Light”, and “Ballad of the Mighty I”.

Who Built the Moon? (2017 – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) Noel’s third outing with NGHFB is quite a different affair. I really didn’t like it at first—after a good, electronic dance tinged instrumental opener, the first two songs on the album have clunky lyrics and melodies that really almost ruin it for me. After a few more listens, however, I found that almost a full third of the album is in fact electronic rock instrumental. Indeed, the whole album seems to center less on strong songs and melody and more on mood–thus a lot of the songs are wrapped in hazy distortion and full of trippy riffs and electronic buzz. Appreciating it as an work meant for listening in that sense, it seems a lot more engaging over all.

EPs:
Black Star Dancing (2019), This is the Place (2019), Blue Moon Risigin (2020)

These three EP albums are mainly electronic dance numbers (and almost endless remix versions of the same) but a few of the secondary songs on them are also nice sweet melodies.