Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Underrated Classic: Oasis 'Dig Out Your Soul'

As Noel and Liam Gallagher still continue to duke it out in the press -- who is calling who a "potato" or saying how Oasis will never reunite, it is making for a great soap opera to play out. However, even though the brothers have failed to reconcile their differences when Noel left the band in 2009, dissolving one of the world's best rock and roll acts, we look back at their seventh and final studio album. It is the record where Oasis plunged the furthest into psychedelica and samples that made 2008's Dig Out Your Soul an interesting and different record for the Manchester band. Dig Out Your Soul was originally recorded inside Abbey Road then they had to finish the LP elsewhere after U2 moved in to record. Yet, the spirit of the famous studio gave way for the band to enter new territory. Noel allowed Liam more control over lyrics and each member of the group played various instruments, like the record's predecessor, 2005's Don't Believe The Truth. Dig Out Your Soul became classic Oasis with a new twists. Singles like "The Shock of the Lightning," "Falling Down," were textbook to the band's sound, yet, other tracks like "Bag It Up," "To Be Where There's Life," "(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady," and "The Nature of Reality," heard them venturing into deeper sounds. While they claimed to be sober through the making of the album, it is their most druggy and spacey sounding LP since 1997's Be Here Now, where they were all actually on coke. This was the final chapter Oasis has left with us and it only opens the doors to what could have been.