2000 Oasis: Go Let It Out

I'm always inclined to see the Millennium as a convenient watershed in the career of Oasis, an Old/New Testament divide between the insanely popular, critic's darlings who lorded it over Britpop and the more subdued, less heralded version that followed. 1998's 'Be Here Now' album seemed to be the catalyst for this, a massively hyped release that garnered fawning early reviews only to leave the critics with entire omelettes on their faces when it revealed itself to be the bloated, just play once folly that perpetually generated its own tedium across its seventy two minute running time. Nobody was in a hurry to get their fingers burned a second time. Not only that, with original band members Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and Paul McGuigan jumping ship to leave the band a trio, it literally was a new Oasis that greeted the new Millennium.

Not so as you'd notice all that much mind - being still based around an acoustic guitar intro with a drum fill ushering in another neo T Rex chug a lug riff (how many times now have we heard that now?) and dominated by Liam's abrasive vocal, 'Go Let It Out' reminds me of 'All Around The World' after one of my crash diets - i.e., it's lighter, but the weight has dropped off all the wrong places. Sure it's less busy, and with less overdubs packing the tracks the song has more room to breathe, but Gallagher still can't resist undertones of cod Beatles psychedlia that, taken with the Lennon-esque vocal, render 'Go Let It Out' a kind of 'I Am The Walrus' minus the fancy dan overdubs. And though it clocks in at a relatively brief four and a half minutes, it's still a good ninety seconds too long for comfort and stringing out such a basic set of building blocks only serves to make a meal out of a busker's snack. Saying that, 'Go Let It Out' is (for me) one of Oasis' more palatable releases, one I'd welcome blasting from the jukebox on a busy Saturday night down the local where the "We're the keepers of their destiny" can take on the mantle of the wisdom of sages and a plan for life after a few beers. But taken on its own then I'm afraid it's sunk by the re-cycled ordinariness of a band either unwilling or unable to escape their own set of rock & roll clichés.