Perhaps one of the best latter-day Oasis hits, The Importance Of Being Idle does not feature Liam Gallagher on the main hit. This is likely due to his ongoing vocal degradation at the time, which turned him from a unique and wonderful vocalist superstar in the 1990s to an absolutely pathetic joke of a singer by 2009 when the band split. Still, this is an EP worth observing, so let’s hear it now and check out the music at hand.

The Importance Of Being Idle is a postmodern Folk Rock piece that is brilliant. From its pounding opening chords, wonderful rhythms and falsetto vocals by Noel Gallagher, this is a brilliant, albeit whiney, piece of music that works wonders. A tremendous effort musically about taking one’s time and not giving a care in life, this is a sensational song. It is very much a musical preview of the Sitting Here In Silence gig that Noel Gallagher and friends played in 2006, which is available on YouTube to view. The guitar solo present is pretty and simple as well. An extraordinary listening experience, the music here is really amazing in many respects. A return to form after many years of ordinary music? Quite likely. Noel Gallagher sings with passion and ease, and although his brother Liam Gallagher could never sing like this, the song is fantastic. A great listen, through and through. Well done guys. Sensational.

Pass Me Down The Wine is a similarly themed Don’t Believe The Truth era song that sounds moving and punchy. Unfortunately, Liam Gallagher sings on it. His voice is raspy and out of tune, if it weren’t for autotune here. Sadly, Noel Gallagher was clearly the better musician by this point and Liam’s singing has had better days. Still, the song present is really quite good and interesting here, and the lyricism is very inspiring and interesting. Catchy in its own way, it is very surprising that such megalomaniacs as Noel and Liam put up with the power struggles vocally on each track for many years. Regardless, a good song and a refreshing listening experience about getting wasted. Although this isn’t exactly a mature statement lyrically, it does sound quite good musically. An interesting tune nonetheless. Another cool tune to hear.

The Quiet Ones is the final track here and is even more acoustically driven than the other songs on this EP. Liam sings again, and his voice is beyond awful, once again. It is quite clear that he was ruining the music of these otherwise excellent songs. This makes some sense in retrospect when Noel Gallagher claimed that people were no longer listening to Oasis by this point. An underrated song nonetheless, goodness knows what it means though, possibly alluding to drug use. Nice in its own way.

This is a definite improvement in the Oasis lock, stock and two smoking barrels of singing and musicianship. Noel’s main track indeed does hold some promise in its own way. However, the other two B-Sides are ruined by Liam Gallagher’s awful vocals and are clearly only really designed to be heard by Oasis fans. Sadly, this trend was to continue but not for too much longer, as history proved. A good, but not great, EP nonetheless.

Mixed results here.

6/10