Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds: Chasing Yesterday (Warners)

 |   |  <1 min read

Noel Gallagher: The Girl With X-Ray Eyes
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds: Chasing Yesterday (Warners)

Neither Gallagher brothers' previous albums – Liam's enjoyable Oasis-like swagger on Different Gear Still Speeding and BE with Beady Eye, Noel's more po-faced self-titled outing with High Flying Birds – scaled particular heights.

But here the more ambitious one rises to the challenge.

Despite opening with “there's something in the way she moves me . . . ”, he mostly steps past his Beatles obsession and heroes like Paul Weller for something distinctly personal and, happily, more musically tripped out (perhaps a consequence of his abandoned venture with Amorphous Androgynous).

The title alludes to him looking in the mirror and perhaps at his scrapbook of madness, and in the Bowie-like, string-enhanced big ballad Girl with the X-Ray Eyes he pays tribute to the woman who rescued him.

More amusingly he gets away a gritty widescreen glam-rock stomp on Lock All the Doors, nods to Led Zeppelin and the Madchester baggy scene in While the Song Remains the Same, The Dying of the Light is a dreamy ballad and The Right Stuff with squirreling sax is just plain groove-riding psyche-pop.

Odd that as he's found his feet and voice, we hear of a possible reconciliation with Liam.

Here he proves who needs who the most.

For more on the Gallagher brothers and Oasis, including interviews, start here

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Sunken Seas: Glass (digital only)

Sunken Seas: Glass (digital only)

This Wellington two-piece impressed Elsewhere mightily with their 2012 debut album Null Hour, notable for its controlled intensity and sonic density. It was nominated for Taite Award in 2013.... > Read more

Durand Jones and the Indications: Private Space (Dead Oceans/digital outlets)

Durand Jones and the Indications: Private Space (Dead Oceans/digital outlets)

This beautifully slinky, synth-soul album slips around you like a comfort blanket from the glorious opener Love Will Work It Out through to the final falsetto soul of I Can See. But don't be... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

DAVID GATES INTERVIEWED (2003): Not in it for the Bread

DAVID GATES INTERVIEWED (2003): Not in it for the Bread

Here's something not many fans of soft-rock singer David Gates -- formerly the songwriter and voice behind Bread -- will know. When he was a much younger man he wrote and produced some material... > Read more

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Tim Finn

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Tim Finn

Tim Finn's remarkable career (outlined here) now reaches to nine solo albums with the release of The View is Worth the Climb. Add in all the Split Enz years, the Crowded House/Finn albums and other... > Read more