As it goes, both Liam Gallagher and John Squire are legends in their respective field: the mazy, psychedelic lead guitar of The Stone Roses, and Oasis’ assured, no-nonsense frontman are seemingly made for one another. Since the demise of their respective bands, each has gone on to different things: Squire formed the Seahorses, and LG has had good success with a pair of decent enough solo records. The two even reunited on stage at Knebworth, a huge solo Gallagher show.
The pair finally came together, creating a collaboration record: ten tracks of distilled bucket hat-wearing, dark fruits-drinking rock music. The sort of thing that the Reading festival should put on (it’s a rock festival, remember?) instead of all that pop shite. From the off, this album lets you know what it’s all about: big Squire hooks and sing-along refrains from LG. The opener, Raise Your Hands has a distinct She’s Electric feeling about the riff and drums, but there is very little that is interesting or even particularly captivating about the track, a theme which runs deep on LG/JS.
There’s more of the same transactional, one-dimensional rock sludge for most of this record: many of the cuts come in at less than four minutes, but after listening for what feels like months you realise we’re only three tracks in. Each number feels overwrought and flabby, it’s self-indulgent to the max with the pair staying very very firmly in their comfort zone. I understand that this record has a preexisting market that would purchase and rave about an LG/JS collaboration if it were kazoos and yodelling, but they could have made an effort to push some sonic boundaries: there is no chance this album appeals to anyone who is not already a fan.
I’m A Wheel is a honkey-tonk style half-speed number which really stinks the place out. LG opens the tune with some wishful thinking: “This isn’t happening”. Oh but Liam, it really is. There is far too much noodling without any substance from Squire and, whilst I know Liam has never been championed for his complex or nuanced lyricism, this is borderline nonsensical. The number follows almost the same pattern as every other track on this record, where after a positively boring verse-chorus-verse, squire throws in a half-arsed guitar solo, all of which feel like they’ve been written at 4:30 pm on Friday before knocking off to the boozer, and it doesn’t get much better.
Everything about the record has that feeling of “fuck it let's just knock off early”: the album doesn’t even have a title, and the cover art is so bad that any graphic designer handing in that work should be jailed. Though in fairness, it quite succinctly reflects the quality of the songs therein.
Lead single Just Another Rainbow is one of the more promising tunes, until Gallagher starts reciting the colours of the rainbow mid-song. I mean, come on Liam. Once more, we strap in for an ultra-indulgent Squire solo, that, amongst the psychedelic noise of The Roses would add gorgeous colour and texture, but by itself, just falls utterly flat. Somehow this song is almost SIX MINUTES LONG and manages to do absolutely nothing interesting. Nothing. You’re begging for it to be over until you come to terms with the fact that this is only the halfway point of this godawful record.
Love You Forever is a kind of faux-Hendrix number so utterly basic in its composition that it’s maddening to listen to. The record is like wading through a fucking swamp of thick sludge and dirge, and when you finally thinking Love You Forever is mercifully concluding, the fucker comes back at half speed for a short callback to the honkey-tonk shite that didn’t work first time round. I’m So Bored is a glimpse of unaware self-depreciation because, nine songs into this thing I really am so bored. The cut is, as you might expect, another curled-out stinker of a track that once more, somehow goes on for five fucking minutes but manages to feel like five fucking hours. This is, unfortunately, the kind of record that makes you want to never listen to music again.
Credit where it’s due, Liam sounds as strong as ever on this album and his vocals are by and large, very good. That being said, that is just about the only positive I can draw from this album: it has a touch of the Be Here Now about it, in that you get the feeling no one told Squallagher “no” at any point, which has resulted in a big, bloated, uninspired and ultimately quite terrible piece of work.
'JUST ANOTHER RAINBOW'
TO BE RELEASED ON 1 MARCH 2024
