Product Code: JDNCLP63
Artist: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Origin: EU
Label: Sour Mash (2023)
Format: LP
Availability: In Stock
Condition:
Cover: M
Record: M
Genre: Alternative Rock , Pop , Rock N

Council Skies

Brand new sealed album with bonus 7".

The ex-Oasis man’s new album has hints of psychedelia and Easy Now is great but there aren’t enough big galumphing choruses to bellow into the night

With Blur about to release a new album and Pulp’s return taking the form of a bustling summer gig schedule, all we need to make 2023 the return of the Britpop Big Three is an Oasis reunion. Alas, with Liam and Noel still scrapping, lately via the mediums of talkSPORT and Twitter, it looks like the closest we’ll get is another High Flying Birds record. Which is, admittedly, quite far. If the Gallaghers did miraculously patch things up at short notice, Noel’s solo project already has the perfect comeback track: Easy Now, the centrepiece of the outfit’s fourth album, is a vintage patchwork of lump-in-throat melodies, sleazy riffs, sentimental lyrics and a big galumphing chorus just begging to be bellowed into the cold black night.

The artwork for Council Skies
The artwork for Council Skies

The rest of Council Skies – a title Noel nicked from a book by his mate, the artist Pete McKee – is less moreishly nostalgic. The title track is a tinny, chugging slice of 00s indie that seems to go out of its way to produce as generic lyrics as possible (“Cause life is unpredictable / You can win or lose it all”) and although there are a few nods to the bright psychedelia and good-time glam of the band’s previous album, Who Built the Moon?, there is also much greying meat-and-two-veg guitar pop, which occasionally veers into old-man gentleness (see: the actually rather Blur-ish Dead to the World). Despite a handful of the elder Gallagher’s irresistible everyman anthems, much of Council Skies is unambitious and generic to the point of tedium.

 

A1   I'm Not Giving Up Tonight
Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Baritone GuitarGem Archer
Bass GuitarRuss Pritchard
Bass TromboneMark Frost
DrumsChris Sharrock
Electric Guitar, Baritone Guitar, MellotronPaul 'Strangeboy' Stacey*
Instruments [The Tube]Callum Marinho
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
StringsThe Wired Strings*
TromboneAlistair White
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, MellotronNoel Gallagher
A2   Pretty Boy
Backing VocalsJess Greenfield*
DrumsJeremy Stacey
Electric GuitarJohnny Marr
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
Keyboards, Drum MachineCallum Marinho
Percussion, Instruments [The Funk Box]Clement St. Leonard
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, MellotronNoel Gallagher
A3   Dead To The World
AccordionGeraint Watkins
Bass GuitarRuss Pritchard
Glockenspiel, PercussionClement St. Leonard
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
Keyboards [Additional], Instruments [The Tube], GlockenspielCallum Marinho
StringsThe Wired Strings*
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano, MellotronNoel Gallagher
A4   Open The Door, See What You Find
Bass GuitarRuss Pritchard
DrumsChris Sharrock
Electric GuitarJohnny Marr
Electric Guitar [Additional], PianoPaul 'Strangeboy' Stacey*
Instruments [The Tube]Callum Marinho
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
Percussion [Additional]Charlotte Marionneau Aka Le Volume Courbe*
StringsThe Wired Strings*
Tubular Bells, PercussionClement St. Leonard
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar [Additional], MellotronNoel Gallagher
A5   Trying To Find A World That's Been And Gone Pt 1
Backing VocalsJess Greenfield*
Keyboards, MellotronCallum Marinho
Percussion, Sounds [Sound Effects]Clement St. Leonard
StringsThe Wired Strings*
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Bass GuitarNoel Gallagher
B1   Easy Now
Drums, PercussionJeremy Stacey
Electric Guitar, Bass GuitarPaul 'Strangeboy' Stacey*
KeyboardsCallum Marinho, Mikey Rowe*
Keyboards [Additional], Percussion, Sounds [Sound Effects]Clement St. Leonard
Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric GuitarNoel Gallagher
B2   Council Skies
Bass GuitarRuss Pritchard
Bass TromboneMark Frost
Drums, PercussionJeremy Stacey
Electric GuitarJohnny Marr
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
Percussion [Additional]Clement St. Leonard
StringsThe Wired Strings*
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric GuitarNoel Gallagher
B3   There She Blows
DrumsChris Sharrock
Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, MellotronPaul 'Strangeboy' Stacey*
Instruments [The Tube], MellotronCallum Marinho
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
Sounds [Sound Effects], PercussionClement St. Leonard
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric GuitarNoel Gallagher
B4   Love Is A Rich Man
Bass TromboneMark Frost
DrumsJeremy Stacey
Electric Guitar, Baritone Guitar, Bass GuitarPaul 'Strangeboy' Stacey*
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
Keyboards [Additional], MellotronCallum Marinho
Percussion, Sounds [Sound Effects]Clement St. Leonard
TromboneAlistair White
TrumpetTom Walsh (12)
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Baritone Guitar, MellotronNoel Gallagher
B5   Think Of A Number
DrumsChris Sharrock
KeyboardsCallum Marinho, Mikey Rowe*
PercussionClement St. Leonard
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Bass GuitarNoel Gallagher
    7"  
A   We're Gonna Get There In The End
DrumsChris Sharrock
Electric Guitar, Baritone GuitarGem Archer
KeyboardsMikey Rowe*
PercussionClement St. Leonard
PianoCallum Marinho
SaxophoneStephen Hamilton*
TrumpetBen Edwards (2)
Vocals, Electric Guitar, Piano, Acoustic Guitar, Mellotron, ProducerNoel Gallagher
B   Pretty Boy (Acoustic)
Backing VocalsJess Greenfield*
KeyboardsCallum Marinho, Mikey Rowe*
Percussion, Instruments [The Funk Box]Clement St. Leonard
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, ProducerNoel Gallagher