Anyone who is finding the 1980s and 1990s mostly Brit soundtrack to the new Netflix series One Day slightly discombobulating – this came out that long ago? – may find the sense of déjà vu kicks in on this spirited if sum-of-its-parts new album by former Oasis voice Liam Gallagher and former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire.
The famed pair’s planets aligning has caused quite a stir in the UK. There have been magazine cover stories and long newspaper features as a couple of parka-clad Dad-rockers crashed the top-20 charts with first single Just Another Rainbow.
The song, which contains trace elements of The Beatles (Rain, especially), Rolling Stones, The Who and, yes, The Stone Roses, is quite a feat. If Danny Boyle ever did another Olympics opening ceremony in the UK, he could save some money by using it as a ready-made Britrock medley.
It is also the best thing on an album where the magpie tendencies also extend to Led Zeppelin (You’re Not the Only One is essentially Zep’s piano-pumping Rock and Roll), Jimi Hendrix (Love You Forever), and many a song that sounds like someone has been having fun with the Lennon-McCartney lyric fridge magnets.
But powered by Squire’s guitar playing and Gallagher’s John Lennon-Lydon voice, initially it makes for a rousing blast of Blighty blues-rock and power-pop with echoes of not one, but two eras. Judging by those on his solo albums and Oasis’s heavy Beatles dependency, you might think those lyrics are all Gallagher’s handiwork, especially with the kiss-off lines in One Day at a Time and Make It Up As You Go Along.
But no, the songs are all Squire’s as they mostly all were in the Stone Roses era. Out alone and still possessed of that cocky persona, Gallagher hasn’t been doing too badly commercially in recent years. Without estranged brother Noel, he’s doing a UK arena tour for this year’s 30th anniversary of Oasis’s debut Definitely Maybe. On the other hand, Squire has largely been missing in action in recent decades. After a couple of post-Roses albums that did nothing, he’s been concentrating on painting – that’s his pop art cover on this.
It’s nice to hear his fluid, funky, down-a-well guitar again, especially when it’s doing that backwards thing it did on the Roses’ anthems. Or when he’s channelling the likes of George Harrison or Eric Clapton on the blues-riffed I’m a Wheel or the closing, Harrison-esque Mother Nature’s Song, yes, a track that is one letter away from being a Beatles title.
It has been a long time since he rocked or indeed rolled and while this isn’t quite Squire’s second coming, it’s an enjoyable echo of his Stone-age heyday.
Available digitally, CD and LP.
