The first time I recall feeling true disappointment as a child was when I was given The Beatles’ Story as a birthday gift. Tearing off the plastic and firing up my Fisher-Price turntable, I eagerly prepared myself for four sides of Fab Four classics, only to hear... a lot of talking. The double-album set, it turned out, was nothing but a hastily compiled Capitol Records Beatlemania cash-in that edited together various press conferences. For famed Fab Fourologist Noel Gallagher, I can easily imagine a reverse scenario—judging by his post-2000 track record, an album of nothing but his interviews would undoubtedly be way more entertaining than one of proper songs.
Reading a conversation with Noel Gallagher is one of life’s great pleasures. He’s quick-witted, unguarded, cheerily self-effacing—pretty much everything that the overly mannered music he’s making these days is not. His second foray with the High Flying Birds ventures further afield than his 2011 debut, but still succumbs to the same issues—most notably, a palpable joylessness, and the extra strain that puts on Gallagher’s modest voice and piecemeal lyrics.
Considering its creator’s penchant for playful plagiarism—not to mention the fact he’s staring down the 20th anniversary of his career best—you’ll find no richer album title this year than Chasing Yesterday. And in that regard, the man doesn’t let us down: The opening "Riverman" alone cops its title from Nick Drake, its acoustic groove from Gallagher’s biggest hit, its first line from the Beatles’ "Something", and its dreamy brass breakdown from Pink Floyd’s "Shine On Your Crazy Diamond". And the second-hand hits keep-a-comin’: "The Girl With X-Ray Eyes" puts Bowie’s raygun to her head; the album’s one true rave-up, "Lock All the Doors", finds Gallagher once again chained to the mirror and the razor blade, albeit with a copy of David Essex’s Rock On on-hand as a back-up snorting surface. (And that’s not even the most Oasis-y song on here—that one’s called, natch, "You Know We Can’t Go Back".)
Sure, itemizing the song quotes in Noel Gallagher songs is a bit like counting all the f-bombs in a Tarantino flick, a futile exercise in duh. But where Oasis once invested their obvious influences with an attitude and swagger undeniably their own, here Gallagher's like the leader of a consummate cocktail-hour cover act, momentarily piquing your interest with the sound of your favorite tune before tastefully receding into the background. Without brutish brother Liam around to personify his most primal emotions, Noel and the Birds can’t do much but maintain a steady cruising altitude, rarely working up the will to truly soar.
Of course, even in Oasis’ mid-'90s glory, Gallagher was never an especially deep songwriter, but his shopworn sentiments at least felt genuinely lived-in and relatable. (And, ultimately, those songs made you feel really good, and you’re willing to forgive a lot when you feel good.) The moody, mid-tempo torpor of Chasing Yesterday only emphasizes the fact that, as Gallagher’s songs have turned more narrative and descriptive in his later years, they’ve become more emotionally vague. Pretty much every tune here sees him pining for some mystical, unattainable woman, but with all the hazy cosmic jive about being "shot from the sun like a bullet from a gun" and "dreaming about a revolution" and a "girl who electrifies the storm," Gallagher isn’t so much burning his heart out as slipping inside the eye of his mind. And while the bloozy bar-band guitar/sax interplay would be enough to sink "The Mexican" on its own, its restraining-order-worthy come-on—"You say you need love/ Just like a kid on crack"—makes it sound like Gallagher tests out his pick-up lines after watching reruns of Cops.
But while the songwriting may be on autopilot, Gallagher’s decision to self-produce Chasing Yesterday was a smart one, resulting in an album that feels both intimate and expansive. Hands-down album highlight "The Right Stuff" reminds us that Noel does his best work with a foil—in this case, guest vocalist Joy Rose, whose simmering verses lend Gallagher's mid-song takeover a sense of occasion, while goading saxophonist Jim Hunt into some destabilizing psychedelic squawking. In a recent interview for the album, Gallagher ranked "The Right Stuff" and the similarly nomadic (if less captivating) "Riverman" as among the Top 12 songs he’s written. If this portends further excursions in uncharted terrain, let’s hope it’s the rare interview where Noel Gallagher’s not taking the piss.
