Give yourselves an audible lobotomy searching for one inkling of quality to come from Oasis after their first two records were gobbled up by the masses. A two-trick pony which subsequently broke its legs on the cocaine-fuelled Be Here Now and spent the remainder of its wounded, in-fighting life trying to recapture the glory days with heavy guitar works and objectively atrocious lyrics. Noel and Liam Gallagher share no surprise in this catastrophic turn of form, and the seventy-five-minute snoozefest Heathen Chemistry confirms the horrors. Nasally torture, slick and thick guitar work overpowering any chance of promising mixtures in the recording booth. Get up when you’re down? Is that so, Gallagher? Pedestrian writing on The Hindu Times gets this one off to a dead-on-arrival start, but for those cemented in their nostalgic ways, Heathen Chemistry will still sound rewarding.
Try and shake off the malaise of a setting sun in the spotlight, or at least in the front and centre clutching memorable tracks. Memorable does not equal good but forgettable usually leads down the miserable road. Heathen Chemistry is stocked with this sense of panicked clutching at ideas which would not and should not work. Heavenly backing vocals are barely audible over the naff tambourine encouragement of a gurning parka lover and his brother. Oasis continues to lift from the unexpected places – this time the stilted paranoia of Nightclubbing from Iggy Pop, the consistent percussion fitted here on Force of Nature as a terrible descriptor of how looks fade. Smoke their stash, burn the cash. This is as much as Gallagher can offer on this one – though at least Noel’s vocal range shows signs of promise. It would take him another decade to get anything useful from it.
Repetitive grind and crunch on Hung in a Bad Place bring out the obnoxious repetition which plagued Oasis around this period. They were, and still are, too big for their boots. Nothing biblical about it – just a waste of time which sounds too like their Madchester-influenced first two records. A muffled and plain back-and-forth on Stop Crying Your Heart Out brings an acceptable quality – though one Sainsburys would snap up for a tearful Christmas advert. Another numb number in the form of Little by Little but again shored up by Noel Gallagher. His voice is the best part of this piece though it is little cover for the horrendous lyrics on show. Boxed-in, inexperienced tat which has as much joy flowing from it as a bout of gout.
Without question an album your dad has in the glovebox and forgot all about. Nestled in there with Skrillex EPs and Tinie Tempah CDs is a post-90s Oasis release bought by those who know the name. Finding an organ and pratting about with it for country-adjacent number A Quick Peep is, indeed, a smash-and-grab experience. Just a minute long and the most interesting song the band managed following their heady days at the top. The likes of She Is Love and album closer Better Man are insultingly simple. The Beatles’ mark is left once more on a band hoping to turn their cheap tricks into chart-topping trials. That they did, and we should feel worse for it. Sickening twangs of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer can be noted on the tiresome Born on a Different Cloud. Heathen Chemistry is for and by gutless, middle-of-the-road listeners using the gift of song to pass the time in car rides.
