Label: Epic
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Standing on the Shoulder of Giants
Oasis needed a simple turn of brilliance after their steady descent into rock-star buffoonery, which was soundtracked by the third-album failure of "Be Here Now." Instead the lads deliver "Standing on the Shoulder of Giants," a larger-than-life, bombastic endeavor layered in swirls of pretense and choir vocals.
"Fucking in the Bushes" is an obvious album-opening designer-distraction: a semipermeable stew of shoe-gazing dizziness and horror samples. "Go Let It Out" is a deft psychedelic stab, pulling cloud-high strings downward for a hand-clapping grand finale. On his writing debut, "Little James," Liam Gallagher wears his grammar-school thesaurus on his sleeve, whining unlikely words like "plasticine" and "trampoline" to the strum of sap.
The rest of the lot are essentially overdressed odes to sobriety that on their own might imply revelation, but when grouped together, the collection hedges on denial.
