Neither Gallagher brother's previous albums - Liam's enjoyable Oasis-like swagger on Different Gear Still Speeding 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).
Watch Ballad Of The Mighty I by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds:
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.
