Liam Gallagher - As You Were

The Guardian 60

The younger Gallagher now has better ballads than Noel – but his lyrics will have you beating your head against a table

The relative commercial failure of Liam Gallagher’s post-Oasis band Beady Eye counts as one of the more perplexing events in recent pop history. To an impartial observer, their two albums seemed neither better nor worse than Oasis’s multi-platinum latter-day efforts. It was surprising that a fanbase who once seemed perhaps the most devoted and undiscriminating around – people who dutifully trooped out in their millions to buy albums as mediocre as Heathen Chemistry, people who sent a track as slender as Songbird to the upper reaches of the singles chart – suddenly became so capricious, so seemingly discerning in their pursuit of Beatles/Slade-influenced bloke-rock. But they deserted in their droves: comparing Beady Eye’s sales figures to those of even the least successful Oasis album, 90% of them jumped ship. Why? Was it loyalty to Noel? Or does some kind of super-sense lurk beneath their feather-cuts that enables them to discern a qualitative difference between the contents of the Beady Eye album Different Gear, Still Speeding and all the forgettable old toot Oasis peddled in the noughties?

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The Guardian 60

(Warner Bros)

Perhaps recognising that songwriting was not chief among Beady Eye’s remarkably few attributes, Liam Gallagher has sought outside help for his solo debut. Enter A-listers Greg Kurstin (Adele, Katy Perry) and Andrew Wyatt (Charli XCX, Florence + the Machine) with a set of songs that, if not remarkable, are at least an upgrade. Kurstin co-wrote I Get By and Greedy Soul, which stand out for their swagger. However, Gallagher gets bogged down in over-egged schmaltz on the self-penned Universal Gleam, and the anthemic For What It’s Worth is a shameless hat-tip to Don’t Look Back in Anger. As ever, the lyrics offer the richest entertainment, with the usual mix of Beatles steals (“Tomorrow never knows”; “Happiness is still a warm gun”), a Daily Express-worthy obsession with the weather (“So dry your eyes/Come rain or shine”, “The winds of change must blow”), braggadocio (“I’m gonna steal your thunder”) and utter nonsense (“She gotta 666/ I got my crucifix/ She gotta spinning head/ Likes the ungrateful dead”) at least offering some continuity.

Pitchfork 49

The debut solo album from the 45-year-old, would-be rock’n’roll savior fails to match the charm of his cantankerous public persona.

Drowned In Sound 40

And so to As You Were, an album born out of domestic boredom as much as his rock’n’roll saviour complex. It’s a little odd to be releasing a debut solo offering 25 years into a career, but as he himself recently put it: 'This is the last fuckin’ roll of the dice for me.' Prevailing wisdom has it that this is the last thing music needs, that it would represent the final excavation of Britpop’s grave in a desperate attempt to find one last nugget of gold buried among the corpses of boorish, three-chord pub rock and #laddism. His previous when it comes to songwriting – "You live for your toys / Even though they make noise" – suggests he’s not the man to lead the search, although lead single 'Wall Of Glass' wasn’t terrible, and hinted that his writing had graduated beyond aimless metaphors and nursery rhymes.

Has he stepped out from Oasis’ – and Noel’s – shadow, and the train wreck that was Beady Eye? Is this a collection of songs befitting his status – deserved or otherwise – as one of the most iconic frontmen of a generation? Well, yes and no. For a start, it’s not really his; a third of the material here is co-written with Andrew Wyatt and producer Greg Kurstin. Two songs don’t bear his name at all. Unsurprisingly, the presence of such steady hands leads to As You Were’s most assured moments, even if they frequently resort to bolting together various Oasis trademarks; a wall of guitars here, some mawkish acoustic strumming there, and just a sprinkling of brass and harmonica. The feeling persists that this is a missed opportunity, an untaken chance for the younger Gallagher to stretch his imagination and really test his songwriting chops; Liam The Singer had an edge and air of unpredictability, but As You Were plays it far too safe to really thrill.

It’s a shame, as truth be told, there are more of those assured moments here than you’d expect. 'Wall Of Glass' harks back to the chin-up bravado the Gallaghers used to conjure so effortlessly while selling out arenas the world over. 'Paper Crown' and 'For What It’s Worth' have the misty-eyed quality of Noel’s best B-sides, when the fug of Sixties haze parts just enough to let diamond choruses shine through. Even 'Chinatown', whose chorus is lifted wholesale from 'Champagne Supernova', transcends its silliness just enough to be charming. These are modest highlights though, and the fact they stick out only underlines the shortcomings elsewhere.

Subtlety is an early casualty, lyrics and riffs hitting with all the grace and charm of a sledgehammer. Everything is turned up to "anthemic", but ironically for someone defiantly "having it large", the album’s most boisterous moments sees Gallagher floundering around within the tunes. 'Greedy Soul' keeps speeding towards the horizon, even when he can’t keep up; parts keep flailing off as the band keep the accelerator pinned to the floor. 'You Better Run' is even worse, a stomp as pointless as it is hilarious. "Angels, gimme shelter / Cause I’m about to fall / It’s all gone helter-skelter" he snarls, shoehorning not one, not two, but three rock touchstones into the chorus. And lest you be in any doubt as to his commitment, check out his live band; there it is, emblazoned in bold across the keyboardist’s stand. His guitarist won’t even take off his shades indoors while filming a radio session. Rock’n’roll stars indeed.

Of course, some might say none of that really matters. 2017 is the year that Liam Gallagher became a full-blown National Treasure. His normal-bloke-down-the-pub persona has long provided amusement alongside an endless stream of bon mots and zingers: Making tea!; getting the names of popular rappers hilariously wrong!; even flying, the most mundane of modern pursuits, has been given the full on Gallagher treatment. An endless war of words with Noel is just more fuel for the fire, keeping his name in the headlines and interest in his music high; I suspect that neither brother is all that upset by the countless news stories chronicling every barbed tweet and insult.

A dear departed colleague coined the phrase The Kasabian Defence to explain the never-ending popularity of stuff like this, and 100,000 tickets sold in little over an hour is not to be sniffed at. Consider the score below; depending on your allegiance, it could be almost anything. But all the goodwill in the world can’t disguise the fact that this particular well of nostalgia ran dry a good few years ago. "Are yer mad fer it?" Liam used to ask of thousands, bestriding stages like he owned them. That it’s all come to this just proves that it really is better to burn out than fade away.