How long can the Gallagher brothers engage in this tiresome game of side-project chicken? Technically, Liam’s band Beady Eye and Noel’s High Flying Birds aren’t side projects-- we're supposed to believe that these indifferently received endeavors are decisive steps away from their busted-up partnership in Oasis, which was still one of the world’s more reliable arena-filling rock bands at the time of its dissolution in 2009. But Liam and Noel can’t help sounding like incomplete halves in search of a lost whole when apart. On Beady Eye’s 2011 debut Different Gear Still Speeding, Liam had the attitude but not the songs; Noel’s High Flying Birds had the songs but not the attitude. Two years later, it’s safe to assume that anyone who still cares about either one of these guys would rather hear them together than on their own, trying in vain to compensate for the other brother’s absence.
But the Gallaghers are nothing if not stubborn, which means the world will have to wait at least one more album/tour cycle before the inevitable reunion cash-in. With Beady Eye’s new BE, Liam gamely goes through the motions of progressing beyond the rudimentary Oasisisms of Different Gear by employing TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek as producer*.* The results are about what you’d expect: BE is somewhat more adventurous than Different Gear, and certainly more dynamic. The horns laid over the menacing introduction of “Flick of the Finger” provide a touch of spice to Beady Eye’s meat-and-potatoes stew, and the ambient noise that pads out psych-tinged rockers like “Soul Love” ostensibly improves on the straight-forward lumbering that distinguishes long stretches of the first Beady Eye record. On paper, it’s a “better” album. So why is BE less enjoyable than Different Gear? Could it be that hiring a “smart” producer like Sitek was exactly the opposite of what this pleasurably dumb band requires?
For all of the finesse that Sitek brings to BE, he might’ve been better off just making sure that the guitars were turned up loud enough. “I’m Just Saying” boasts the record’s most magnetic riff, clanking out of a burst of feedback and arrogantly barreling forward on supercharged power chords. It’s exactly the sort of song that should kill on a Beady Eye record, and yet on BE it’s a little too clean, even antiseptic. This is a band that needs to sound a little blurry and blown-out; Beady Eye’s broad strokes and bombastic flourishes are more satisfying when you can’t make out the specifics. Sitek’s pristine production only highlights how half-baked many of these songs are, especially lyrically. “Second Bite of the Apple” is a potentially fun snotball of classic Liam Gallagher insouciance, but lines like, “Shake my tree/ Where’s the apple for me/ Tickle my feet with the enemy” (or possibly, the NME) are better when vaguely heard than comprehended.
“Second Bite of the Apple” was written by Gem Archer, one-third of Beady Eye’s songwriting triumvirate that also includes Gallagher and Andy Bell. It’s a mild surprise that Gallagher’s songs are the best on BE in a walk-- it’s downright shocking how much he sounds like his brother on the pretty album closer “Start Anew”, a budget-minded “Champagne Supernova” with killer echo-y drum sounds lifted from John Lennon’s Phil Spector-produced solo records. If Liam seems hamstrung as a rocker on BE, at least he’s showing more promise as a balladeer. If that’s another ploy to convince Noel that he can be replaced, and therefore should cancel this solo career silliness and revive Oasis, BE might serve a purpose after all.
