Album Review: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Council Skies

As often happens artists who hit middle age, Noel Gallagher is in reflective mood on Council Skies, as the ex-Oasis man grapples with his remarkable life to date and ponders what’s it all meant. As he puts it, it’s an album about “going back to the beginning. Daydreaming, looking up at the sky and wondering about what life could be”.

As befits the album’s themes, Council Skies has a very laidback feel, entirely forfeiting the kind of rip-roaring rock with which Noel originally made his bones. But when the music is this expertly realised, there’s precious little to complain about. One of several tracks to feature Gallagher’s fellow Mancunian guitar hero Johnny Marr, opener ‘I’m Not Giving Up Tonight’ is an acoustic strummer boasting summery vibes, gospel backing vocals and a memorable chorus.

Marr also features on the krautrock-style groover ‘Pretty Boy’ and ‘Open The Door, See What You Find’, which features the kind of Beatles-style psychedelia for which Noel is renowned. Perhaps best of all is the title track, which oddly recalls Stereolab in its mix of motorik rhythms and xylophone flourishes. It also boasts some of the romanticism associated with a long-term Gallagher hero, the late Burt Bacharach, thanks to swooning lines like, “Under council skies I find you”.

Having surveyed his youth, the singer eventually turns back to new possibilities on the closing ‘Think Of A Number’, on which he concludes, “Let’s drink to the future”. It’s a suitably upbeat way to sign off another fine effort by the High Flying Birds.

8/10

Read our interview with Noel Gallagher – in which he talks Johnny Marr, Robert Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Irish passports, break-ups and more with Stuart Clark – in the new issue of Hot Press, out later this week...