Oasis – Don’t Believe The Truth (2005)

After the terrible Heathen Chemistry, which was basically polished rubbish, Oasis needed to release good music once again. The once glorious and powerful drummer Alan White left, with Ringo Starr’s son Zac Starkey filling in the role for the time being.

At first, things did not go well recording this album. The group seemed to revisit the experimental nature of Be Here Now and Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants by enlisting the Death In Vegas producer duo to begin the album. It did not work out well, Noel Gallagher knew that the effort could have been better. Instead, he requested Dave Sardy to do the job for the group and began reworking the songs on this album entirely.

The result here is better than anything the group recorded post (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? in terms of overall quality of the songs. It has a concise, punchy sound and the group sounds so far more ahead of their contemporaries for the first time in years. It’s not perfect, sure. But it is good music by Oasis once again.

Turn Up The Sun sets the scene, “I carry a madness, wherever I go. Over the border – and back to the snow.” Liam Gallagher’s voice has not aged very well and that is audible here. But his delivery is fantastic on this song, sneering away in a Definitely Maybe way. A good start to the album.

Mucky Fingers is Noel Gallagher’s take on classic rock. It is a name reminiscent of The Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers and is an almost direct rip-off from The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting For My Man. But it’s passable, not laughable. The harmonica part is amazing sounding.

The next song was a hit from the album. Lyla talks about a girl on a melodic and rather excellent pop piece. Zak Starkey does some superb drum rolls here, particularly in comparison to Alan White’s lackluster performance on Heathen Chemistry. It’s a very good pop song.

There are plenty of love songs on this album. Love Like A Bomb is the most direct, and although Liam sounds like he has developed throat cancer, it is mindblowing. That’s how good this piece is. It is easily stuck inside one’s head for days. Good effort.

The Importance Of Being Idle is a great Noel Gallagher effort, telling the tale of oneself being lazy. It’s an interesting subject matter for the listener to endure and is just so well done here. It sounds like Noel meeting a stomp-style romp. A very nice song.

The Meaning Of Soul once again deals with love based themes and goes for a very short time frame. This is years away from the long song fetishism of Be Here Now, it just fits in nicely with the rest of the recording. A great fast paced song.

The next song, Guess God Thinks I’m Abel deals directly with biblical themes and talks about deep and meaningful love by Liam. This is one of the most serious Oasis songs ever made, although they made plenty of serious songs. It has a semi Chemical Brothers like outro but is just a good song once again.

Modern-day grumbles are here with Noel Gallagher’s Part Of The Queue are here. It’s a weaker song, but even then it’s still okay listening.

Keep The Dream Alive is an epic song, but really lifts you up emotionally into the chorus when it arrives. As an epic song, it’s not long like Be Here Now, nor depressing like Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, nor garbage like Heathen Chemistry. It just fits the bill nicely.

A Bell Will Ring is an optimistic piece written by second guitarist Gem Archer. In fact, although it’s not really overly memorable, it is so very positive it will lift you up into the song as it blasts.

The last song, Let There Be Love is really very good. The Gallagher brothers sing together alternating between different lead vocal roles and it’s a nice piece to close the album.

So, there you have it. Oasis were back at this point and once again, made a decent album for us to enjoy. It really is a shame that the group couldn’t hold it together after 2009, but at least they left this awesome album to enjoy. Don’t Believe The Truth, it’s better than you think it would be. Fans of this album should chase out the studio interviews on YouTube that the group did for this album, a brilliant idea to show the effort behind this, their best later career album.

8/10