STANDING ON THE SHOULDER OF GIANTS (Big Brother)

Rehabilitated

Oasis: they're much better now, thank you.

The band's two remaining founder members have done a runner, their record label has wound up, now that its boss and co-founder has skedaddled, and - lest we forget - their last album is now perceived as something of a disappointment. Just one of these factors has recently been enough to knock the crown off such pop royalty as R.E.M., Spice Girls and George Michael.

But Oasis are different. No-one seems to care that the two band members who augmented their beery charm are no longer rooted to the spot on stage. Or that the Number 10-approved genius who discovered them (but did not guide them to glory, Alan McGee was in rehab at the time) has dumped his once innovative label and moved into the shadowy world of the lnternet. Despite all the tradrock accusations, Oasis were never a 'proper' band in the first place. It was always about the brothers Gailagher: one of them, the best British rock'n'roll singer of the last 25 years; the other a shameless musical cat burglar able to forge impossibly winning tunes out of other people's chord sequences.

Oasis made wonderful, transcendent music, which did simple things well and, incidentally, was perfect forgetting drunk to. But, perhaps as importantly, just as Britain shook off recession, the Gallaghers embraced fame, money and success, yet still - like The Beatles before them - managed to retain their sense of humour. It is no exaggeration to say that in the mid-'90s they symbolised a country regaining its confidence. Oasis made Britain a cooler place to be.

Yet, despite occupying such a unique position in the nation's affections, the empty triumphalism and excess of Oasis's third album, 1997's 'Be Here Now', tarnished their reputation. Their talent and charm were buried beneath a blizzard of cocaine and rampant ego: something that Gallagher Sr admitted with the benefit of hindsight.

Yet there's no pop star as self-aware as Noel Gallagher and the way he's tuned into the sobering shift in national mood in the intervening 29 months (14 months since impressive B-sides stop-gap 'The Masterplan') proves that he hasn't lost his ability to surf the Zeitgeist.

The drugs - so they tell us - are a thing of the past. Gone are those daft, outsized Nehru suits, expensively roomy jeans and the faddishness that made Oasis exciting when they were on form and repellent when they weren't. Emerging late last year, bronzed and slim but with barmy'70s hair, it was clear both Gallaghers w@re now realrock stars; the kind that wear clothes you can't buy in the shops and who don't have to work for a living.

This re-branding of Oasis has now extended into the new album. 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants' is the sound of wealthy rock stars making a valiant and for the most part successful attempt to rediscover their musical cool.

Lead-ff track "Fuckin'in The Bushes" proves that Oasis can still come up with the duffest of song titles ("Digsy's Dinner", anyone?), yet this psychedelic instrumental sets the poles for the band's new sound. A gene-splice between Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song' and Spencer Davis Group's 'I'm A Man', it has a pounding groove, thanks to Alan White's John Bonhamesque recreation of a drum loop culled from The Jimi Hendrix Experience's BBC Sessions, nicely augmented by a sample lifted from the Isle Of Wight Festival film, and raga-ish sitar flourishes (courtesy of scally pal/chief loopmeister Mark Coyle) that sound as if they've been cribbed from an edition of Ready Steady Go! circa 1966.

Oasis have at last broadened their sonic palette. But the real revelation is what Liam told Q last year were 'fuckin' psychedelic McCartney basslines'. With Paul 'Guigsy' McGuigan all fingers and thumbs, Noel confessed that he performed the majority of the basslines on the new album. It's Noel's four strings that throb their way through the Beta Band influenced, acoustic guitar and Mellotron weave of first single "Go Let It Out".

Those basslines also underpin "Who Feels Love", the second single-to-be and the album's most pointedly psychedelic track. Employing Revolver's tablas, backwards guitars and sitars, Liam positions his voice somewhere between John Lennon and lan Brown for an updated take on The Stone Roses' 'Waterfall'. The dreamy bare feet-and-beads ambience suggests Oasis are plugged in to the backto-nature vibe of rock's cutting edge, as well as being the only band campaigning under the drooping flag of Madchester, British guitar music's last high water mark. It is also 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants' most satisfying musical moment. You'll recall it was a room service johnny who, on spying thousands of pounds and a glamorous blonde splashed over George Best's hotel bed, asked the fading footballer, "Where did it all go wrong?" Originally slated as the album's title, it provides the 'How I Fucked It Up' theme for a triptych of songs that are among Noel's most personal.

By far the most intimate is the corking, Beatle-ish "Gas Panic", which pinpoints the delirious after-effects of heavy cocaine abuse. "Sunday Morning Call", a paean to self-awareness, or the moment one realises when something has been lost 'down the drug dealer's' is every bit as epic and emotional as "Champagne Supernova". "Where Did It All Go Wrong" features Noel on vocals, but by now the mid-tempo balladry has begun to grate. The fact that it bears an uncanny resemblance to Paul Weller's 'Sunflower' also doesn't help.

In fact, 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants' is occasionally let down by those fiimsy Oasis-bynumbers moments. "Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth" Is rips off The Doors' 'Roadhouse Blues', right down to the 'Hands upon the wheel' refrain. Under normal circumstances, Liam's voice would compensate for his brother's worst songwriting crimes, but, despite the addition of a vast choral sample, this is just a riff looking for somewhere to go. "I Can See A Liar's" heaving guitars and lazy lyrics ('I can see a liar/sitting by the fire,' sings Liam - and that's the chorus) should be left on a B-side, while tingly Abbey Road guitar touches can't quite save "Roll It Over" from collapsing under the weight of its stadium ambitions.

Given Noel Gallagher's prodigious output, it's hardly surprising that the muse occasionally nips off to the pub, or that he recently admitted to feeling relieved that new recruits Gem Archer (guitar) and Andy Bell (bass) were both established songwriters. Now of course, Liam Gallagher can be added to that list. His lyrical retread of John Lennon's 'Beautiful Boy' will be derided in some quarters and, yes, the lyrics are a little winsome ('Live for your toys/even though they make noise') but "Little James" is surprisingly affecting, and the addition of a wonderfully over-the-top sampled choir (was Noel renting a Mellotron by the day?) and some 'Na Na Na's' reveal the singer at his most engaging.

Perhaps we have no right in this day and age to expect the fourth album from a major group to be a work of genius. 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants' is not that, but it is an effective, modern psychedelic record that has dumped the bombast of yore and replaced it, for the most part, with some real emotion: witness "Gas Panic's" lyrical intimacy, for one.

At Christmas, Noel Gallagher burbled excitedly to Q about the musical possibilities provided by his talented new colleagues. With teen pop crushing everything before it, Radiohead unwilling or unable to be anything so 20th Century as rock stars, and label hassles, bust-ups and babies notwithstanding, Oasis are still British rock'n'roll's brightest hope. Maybe now more than ever.

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c 2000 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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