After a few pompous releases, English band Oasis is back with a light and melodious album in the vein of (What's The Story) Morning Glory?.
As always their music, strongly influenced by the Beatles, is located halfway between homage and pure and simple copy. Since (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis has been appreciated especially as a guilty pleasure given their capacity to reanimate the rock and pop sounds of the Sixties and Seventies, following the Lenny Kravitz's lead.
On Heathen Chemistry, the group recovers the melodic talent that had been abandoned on their two previous opuses. With some exceptions, the album offers a solid collection of indelible refrains. The album's principal surprise is Liam Gallagher's successful writing, providing the most haunting piece of music by resuscitating John Lennon. While the compositions of group's two new members are much less convincing, one will especially regret the more marked presence of Noel Gallagher behind the microphone, as his forced voice makes us miss his brother even more.
The fluid, lively saturated guitars of "Hindu Times" and "Hung in a Bad Place" that appropriate the riff from "No Fun" by the Stooges, are reminiscent of the best of Definitely Maybe. The nervous "Better Man" is an echo of T-Rex. "She is Love" and "Song Bird" veer towards rustic folk. "Force of Nature", based on Iggy Pop's rhythms on "Nightclubbing", and "Little by Little" are undoubtedly the most laborious songs on the record, while the presence of an instrumental was far from being essential. The two most magical moments are ballads that revisit the Beatles and Lennon: "Stop Crying your Heart Out" (not far from their famous "Wonderwall") and especially the venomous "Born on a Different Cloud".
Oasis certainly hasn't invented anything with Heathen Chemistry but the formula is there.
Oasis Heathen Chemistry
