Böse Rezension, aber größtenteils leider nicht unwahr.
The Line Of Best Fit“Sleepwalk away your life if that turns you on / It’s only a moment, look away and it’s gone.” So begins the debut album from Beady Eye. And by god, it doesn’t get any better.
It is virtually impossible to imagine a more inane set of lyrics than those that populate this record. Indeed, considered in its totality, it is pretty difficult to imagine a more ridiculous, half-baked musical endeavour. Reviewing this record does seem rather like the critical equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. But truly, Different Gear, Still Speeding is so unfathomably ridiculous that its release could well be the event that renders satire unnecessary.
Picture the situation. You are the face and voice of the band that has arguably done more than any other to define the shape of British music over the past two decades. Despite your ability to captivate an audience, your de facto position as leader of the country’s brigades of lads, you live in the shadow of your brother’s brilliance. You try your hand at songwriting; the results are embarrassing. The band implodes, as it was always destined to do. You set about putting together your own outfit, free of fraternal influence – presumably in part in an effort to prove that you can stand on your own two feet after all these years.
Well, if Liam Gallagher’s intention was to prove that he doesn’t need his brother, he has failed spectacularly. Noel’s shadow looms large across this record. Opener ‘Four Letter Word’ sounds very much like a man trying to convince himself (and us) that he is better off shot of Oasis. “Nothing ever lasts forever,” Gallagher Junior sings, trying his best to sound menacing.
The problem, of course, is that there is absolutely nothing here that is anywhere near as exciting as even the most tawdry of Oasis b-sides. Noel Gallagher, for all his faults, is a bona fide genius. His brother, for all his charisma, is a poseur – not a songwriter.
And so, inevitably, this record is not the clean break that Liam clearly imagines it to be. It is the sound of a band covering an Oasis covers band; the sound of a man who has studied his brother’s chord progressions and presumed that it really is as easy as 1-3-5. The instant hooks, the deceptive simplicity; everything that made Oasis great has completely eluded Beady Eye. And, without the musical bedrock that Noel provided, Liam’s previously intoxicating bravado has all but vanished. On ‘Standing On The Edge Of The Noise’ he tries to swagger; on ‘Beatles and Stones’ he tries to swing. But he has entirely lost his way, apparently consumed by his own crippling self-absorption. Different Gear is not, as some critics have suggested, a return to the past glories of Definitely Maybe. Instead, it brings to mind the wheelchairs of the terminally ill being slowly pushed along a seaside promenade, their occupants wittering harmlessly while their long-suffering carers nod and umm and aah at the appropriate moments.
In penultimate track ‘The Beat Goes On’, Liam imagines arriving in heaven and hearing the angels performing his songs (yes, really). If the cherubs really are singing something up in the firmament, it is definitively not going to be anything off this tedious record. Having forced myself through repeated listens over the course of the past week, I don’t think I could hum you a single melody from Different Gear, Still Speeding. And really, if you are going to be forced to sit through three quarters of an hour of this, the least you could hope for is a decent tune.
Were it not for the Gallagher name, Beady Eye would not have made it past the notebook of the most junior of A&Rs. Not even in a world where major labels sign bands like Brother. The sooner this absurd enterprise is forgotten, the better.