Music: CD Reviews

After 10 Years, Finally, Oasis Returns to their Old Melody

Oasis: "Don't Believe the Truth"
(Epic)

Don't believe the hype, unless it's the sort of qualified praise Mojo magazine has heaped on this sixth studio album from Oasis, calling it "their best in nearly a decade."

In other words, of all the punchless, puffy white shirt records that have followed 1995's "(What's the Story) Morning Glory," this is the most listenable. This new one isn't as full of itself as 1997's "Be Here Now," doesn't meander desperately like 2000's "Standing On the Shoulder of Giants" or, well, I can't really make a comparison to 2002's "Heathen Chemistry" because three years later I can't recall a single thing about it.

The bad news is that the Oasis on a mission to save rock 'n' roll in '94 and '95 is gone and they're not coming back. But the best songs on "Don't Believe the Truth" — the Mott the Hoople nod "Mucky Fingers," Noel Gallagher's grand pop recital "Part of the Queue," the uplifting rumble of "A Bell Will Ring" and "Lyla," ready to sail a sea of hands at the ACL Fest in September — are better than the weaker songs on the first two albums. It's just that there's nothing like "Columbia," "Some Might Say" or "Morning Glory" to saute the contents of your skull.

It's a new sincere Oasis, one that embraces lovely melodies, rather than squirrelling them under mounds of phase-shifted guitar. Oasis has become a true band, not merely battling brothers and the mates who can stand them that month.

Everybody contributes, from opening track "Turn Up the Sun," a giddy toast from bassist Andy Bell that makes more sense after the record's theme of "stop being a jerk and start hugging everybody" is established with the closing trio "Keep the Dream Alive," "A Bell Will Ring" and "Let There Be Love."

"Don't Believe the Truth" sounds as if it was recorded with all the members in the studio at the same time. That's the first time in nearly a decade Oasis can claim that.
— Michael Corcoran

Smog: "A River Ain't Too Much to Love"
(Drag City)

"Whether or not there is any type of God, I'm not supposed to say/ And todaaaaaay, I don't really care," Smog (aka Bill Callahan) intones while local percussionist extraordinaire Thor Harris (Shearwater, Angels of Light) parts the holy gates to Valhalla with his celestial mix of hammered dulcimer and air drum. The track is "I Feel Like The Mother of the World," and it's one of the few moments on the recent Austin émigré's maudlin 12th album, "A River Ain't Too Much to Love," when Callahan doesn't seem his stereotypically sadcore self.

Recorded at Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studio, "River" is a first for Callahan in that he worked out the material before heading into the studio rather than the usual case of collaborating with his fellow musicians once he gets there. Joining him on the redemptive "Rock Bottom Riser" — not on her trademark harp, but on piano — is label mate and freak folk girl-of-the-moment Joanna Newsom.

On opener "Palimpsest," Callahan's crisp, economic guitar work and almost-spoken-word voice, which comes across as less haunting than Leonard Cohen but more bearable than Nick Cave, just may make a listener think twice before answering the following question about his move to the area: "Why is everybody looking at me, like there's something fun-da-mentallyyyyyy wrong/ Like I'm a southern bird that stayed north too long?"
— Michael Hoinski

(Smog plays an in-store at Waterloo Records on June 6 at 5 p.m.)

Langhorne Slim: "When the Sun's Gone Down"
(Narnack)

Born Sean Scolnick in Longhorne, Pa., Slim the Brooklynite offers jaunty acoustic melodies that are clearly inspired by Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music" and the crusty mythology that's grown like crab grass around it. The tunes would come off as a bit pretentious if they weren't as jaunty as that tweed porkpie hat he really needs to lose.

This is the sound of a twenty-something who wishes he was 80 trying to document his youth and young manhood with strummy lift and punch. Slim could hang with the Cactus Cafe crowd, throw down at Kerrville or even a guitar pull out in Gruene. (But since he's from Brooklyn and not Bastrop, he's on a label known for noisy indie rock.) His guitar is both lithe and meaty, a tough trick to pull off, and far less precious that most of the psychedelic neo-folk that's sprung up in the past few years (Hello, Devendra Banhart!) Then again, Slim's voice is what polite society calls an aquired taste; you might find that it just grates. Part Beefheart squeal and part cafe-folk croon, it can whip along with a banjo when it wants to ("Loretta Lee Jones," "In the Midnight"). But that squeaky, plaintive croon comes in handy, especially when clobbering folkie cliches on "Drowning:" "I've been burnt by the copper kettle/ I have spit back at the pouring rain."
— Joe Gross

(Langhorne Slim plays indoors at Emo's on Saturday, June 4 at 10 p.m. with Canoe and comedians Eugene Merman and Andy Blitz.)