The Beatles' style evolved rapidly between 1962 and 1969 as the band produced record after record that revolutionized pop music forever. No album sounded quite like the previous one, yet they all became instant classics.
If only Oasis, on "Dig Out Your Soul," could have pulled off such a feat.
As the U.K.'s self-proclaimed Beatles reincarnate, brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher burst onto the scene in 1995 with their second release, "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" That album spun '60s licks and sensitive-guy lyrics into gold, with huge hits like "Champagne Supernova" and "Wonderwall," which that long-haired guy in your hall can probably play on his acoustic guitar. Feuds against fellow Brit-pop band Blur, and later between the two brothers themselves, made Oasis fodder for the press, and college rock stations made them overnight superstars.
Though still huge in England, Oasis hasn't recaptured its popularity in the States over the past decade. Doggedly, the band has released an album about every two years since "Morning Glory." "Dig Out Your Soul," however, is in no way an evolution from 2005's "Don't Believe the Truth," and the band fails to reach the creativity that characterized its work of 13 years ago.
Oasis has certainly been an influential band, paving the way for bands like Coldplay and Travis, but it seems as though Oasis has turned not just to the Beatles but to its progeny for creative cues. So many of the familiar-sounding melodic quirks on "Dig Out Your Soul" appear to be lifted from more contemporary pop-rock bands.
It is as though Oasis has completely given up on the epic, emotional melodies of songs like "Don't Look Back in Anger" from "Morning Glory." Instead, "Dig Out Your Soul" opens with "Bag It Up," a generic modern-rock song that's punctuated by a drone-like barrage of guitar and a pounding, relentless and joyless drum beat. The guitar drone continues ceaselessly through the first four tracks, and the monotonous latter-day Oasis melodies create the impression of one twenty minute-long song.
The dynamics finally subdue in "I'm Outta Time," which includes a recording of John Lennon made two days before he died. The plaintive falsetto recalls both Lennon and Oasis' better days -- both in melody and in lyrics. "Here's a song," Liam sings. "It reminds me of when we were young/ Looking back at all the things we've done." It is the closest the band comes to a creative breakthrough on the album, and it comes through nostalgia.
It seems as though Oasis is simply out of things to say. On the moody track "Falling Down," Noel bleats, "Catch the wind that breaks the butterfly/ I cried the rain that fills the ocean wide." On "The Nature of Reality," he goes so far as to claim, "Space and time and here and now/ Are only in your mind." These lackluster lyrics are punctuated by repetitive and tuneless melodies that seem to collapse in on themselves.
"Dig Out Your Soul" allows for some scant experimentation. "(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady"'s straightforward blues progression and delicate, echoey production distinguishes the song from the rest of the album. But the result is four minutes of meandering exercise and bored guitar riffs. A distorted vocal effect -- the kind that instantly evokes Julian Casablancas of The Strokes -- grates on the ear and does nothing to service the Gallagher brothers' already nasal inflections. Blues guitar resurfaces on "The Nature of Reality" with no additional success.
Ultimately, "Dig Out Your Soul" fulfills the expectations that have been laid onto Oasis in the current decade. The album is monotonous, static, boring and trite. It's not an evolution, but a continuation of the band's last few albums, with no change or attempt at improvement.
Still, "Dig Out Your Soul" won't be a disappointment. It's probably what fans had expected, even if it's not what they had hoped for.
