It's strange to consider that Oasis have now been around longer than their heroes The Beatles, albeit with revamped line-up and Ringo's son now on drums. But the essence of the band, Liam's voice and Noel's songwrting remains intact.
Nonetheless, listening to the latest Oasis album Don't Believe The Truth is a rather weird experience. The sound is in someways a throwback for them - if you can say a sound that was a throwback to begin with is a throwback! Nonetheless, it sounds like a classic Oasis album and that means their first two records.
I haven't yet decided if this record is in the same class, but one song, Let There Be Love, is most definitely up there with their finest.
It reeks of Beatles influences (Lord knows how much trouble they went to get a piano sound exactly like that of Lennon's Isolation), '60s production values and instrumentation (prominent mellotron), but, as is the case with all of Oasis's best material, completely transcends them to stand out as a moving and beautiful ballad, gorgeously sung by both brothers, and with the melodic weight of the most enduring folk music.
Oasis were always a group out of time, a sixties-obsessed band thriving in the nineties because they cherry-picked enough of the music in between to give themselves a uniquely powerful sound. But really none of this matters very much. Their strength is their songs and their singing, with Liam as surely one of the finest rock vocalists of all time.
A great Oasis song is simply that - great.
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