Oasis
Dig Out Your Soul

In the year of collective revival made in England, with the much-anticipated return of Coldplay, Travis, Verve, Charlatans, and company, "Dig out your soul" certainly could not be missed, the seventh studio album by Oasis. The Gallagher brothers, on the verge of their forties, return to the music scene after almost three years of absence, and three decades after the sparkling splendors of their beginnings.

It is necessary to clarify the Oasis experience, which has been extensively discussed on this site (sixty reviews, sixty!!!) swinging excessively between positions of open hostility filled with insults and prejudices and fanatically favorable positions full of words like "best" "world" "genius" and "fucking." There exists a scale of values that, beyond personal preferences and tastes, is essentially based on the basic idea of originality, distinguishing a commercial sub-culture that offers the banal and empty reproduction of stereotyped elements, the sterile repetition of tried and tested conventional formulas of sure and intended success, from more innovative music, more refined, more unpredictable, expressing the tendency towards experimentation and novelty. All this, of course, with nuances and intermediate levels. 

Well, for the past 15 years, Oasis has been moving on the same main coordinates: an anachronistic 70s rock'n'roll, an obsessive reference to the Beatles, a continuous and fake hint at psychedelic music, an unmistakable trace of easy Britpop. They are part of that rabble of musicians who add nothing to the idea of traditional music: the albums that have followed over the years do nothing but reshuffle the cards, exchange the pieces, invert the order of the addends. And as we know, the result does not change. 

This album is no exception. Pervaded everywhere by a flaunted rock, tinged here and there with pseudo-psychedelic nuances, completed with some tear-jerking ballads of Beatle-like memory. The usual, in short. The usual launch single, "The shock of the lightning," fast and catchy, written by Noel in five minutes while he was on the toilet. The usual rock songs played on the catchy riff and Liam's raspy voice that practically carries the piece alone ("Bag it up," "The turning," "To be where there's life," and the truly pathetic three final songs "Ain't got nothin'," "The  nature of reality,"  "Soldier On"). The usual particular, experimental songs that seem to come out of a "Magical Mystery Tour," sung by Noel with his lower and mellower voice ("Waiting for the rapture," "(Get off your) high horse lady" and the appreciable "Falling down" in George Harrison style). Finally, the usual big ballad "I'm outta time," the only truly beautiful piece, where the sweet and lulling melody perfectly matches Liam's sensual voice.

As they say: nothing new. An absolutely mediocre album, at times almost poor.