Album Review: Liam Gallagher - "C'mon You Know"

 

The first feeling provoked by the arrival of a new album from Liam Gallagher in 2022 was probably one of confusion more than anything. After all, while Liam’s defiant snarl was arguably the driving force behind the Oasis sound and he did slowly start to become a contributor on the songwriting front as time went on with that band, it was always Noel who was justifiably regarded, for better or worse, as the main creative force behind Oasis and while Gallagher Sr has unsurprisingly  headed off on a quest to seemingly bore the entire universe to death with the unfettered tedium of his High Flying Birds project, it’s maybe not a surprise that Liam initially struggled a bit following the break-up of the band with his post-Oasis band Beady Eye with Gem Archer, Andy Bell and Chris Sharrock generally feeling like a bit less than the sum of its parts for its two-album existence.

Slowly but surely though, he’s clawed his way back. His previous album, 2019’s Why Me? Why Not, was a solid effort which was short on surprises but inoffensive enough to be an enjoyable straightforward listen. However, with C’mon You Know, he’s spread his creative wings to come up with…well, maybe not his best album since Morning Glory but certainly since Heathen Chemistry.

The key is that this is a good mix of old and new Liam. While the likes of Everything’s Electric (co-written with Dave Grohl) and Don’t Go Halfway are the sort of solid rockers you’d expect from the guy, there’s a few surprises in here. For example, Too Good For Giving Up is a big lighters-aloft piano ballad which could be corny as hell but it works while the slow building title track and the barrelling Better Days are surely live favourites in waiting. Elsewhere, I’m Free starts off all snarling garage punk before going into a bass-heavy dub style chorus and Moscow Rules even goes into baroque pop territory. Oh sure, not everything Liam tries works (the opener More Power tries to sound like the Beatles covering You Can’t Always Get What You Want but it just falls between two stools - all I can say is don’t let it put you off listening further) but, irony of ironies, this heady mix of anthemic tunes and playful experimentation sees him land far closer to the Fab Four sound than any of the jam band dirges his brother’s churned out in the last decade or so.

Had you appeared in a cloud of smoke to my Adidas T-shirt clad 17 year old self in 1996 and told him that a quarter of a century later Liam Gallagher would not only have ended up turning into the more likeable of the two Gallagher brothers but also the one producing the best music as well, I'd probably have asked what you were smoking. Nevertheless, on the evidence of C’mon You Know, that’s very much what he’s done. After more than a few false alarms, the boy is very much back in town.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌑🌑 (8/10)