Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

iTunes Review

As the more experimental brother in Oasis, Noel Gallagher is now exploring exciting new avenues with High Flying Birds, a band as flexible as whatever a track calls for. Brass, strings, Mellotron, a choir; whatever it takes is brought to sonic perfection by Gallagher’s longtime producer Dave Sardy, who nudged Gallagher to take his demos to a real Los Angeles studio. Traces of The Kinks can be heard in the ramshackle “The Death of You and Me,” “Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks,” and “Dream On,” which revisits Ray Davies’ “Sunny Afternoon” and “Dead End Street.” There’s a grand scope to tunes like “(I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine” and “Everybody’s on the Run.” Where Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye stuck to Lennon-centric guitar-based rock, Noel’s insights are gentler, lusher, and completely satisfying, as the hooks of “AKA . . . What a Life!” and “If I Had a Gun . . .” make abundantly clear. The deluxe edition includes the deliciously dreamy “Let the Lord Shine a Light on Me,” the driving “The Good Rebel,” and the essential “A Simple Game of Genius,” which ranks among his best tunes.