Album: Beady Eye - Different Gear, Still Speeding

Image by Man Alive! via FlickrIt was one of those moments. One of those moments when something, someone you'd loved a long time ago could suddenly thrill or disappoint you even though you'd spent years not caring at all. I'd known this moment was coming and yet it was still unexpected. I was unprepared when I turned on the radio, the song halfway through passing harmlessly through my head as I drove along.

What did I think? Well, before I even knew I was in my moment I was thinking "it's no wonder they don't play this John Lennon song very often, it's hardly his best work." And then the moment coughed and announced itself. The Roller by Beady Eye. Hot on the heels of the realisation was the sinking disappointment...my love affair with the music of (in this case) Gallagher junior was still in the past.

Of course, the heart doesn't give up that easily, even when all the signs are there that really I should just let it, them, go. The faded facsimile of Lennon that was the first single, the God-awful album artwork (seriously), the fact this is just latter years Oasis without Noel in the shot. But you know, still a tiny piece of hope clung on that this debut would be as heady, as urgent, as raw and as relevant as Definitely, Maybe was in '94.

This hope led to stealing the five track taster CD that was in a Sunday newspaper from a friend. No surprises here, just the creep of that disappointment further through my veins. Just one track that was anything at all (World Outside My Room - not on the LP) and that was enough to let that little fragile hope flutter on weak wings and draw me into the full album experience.

What happened to the delicate little hope? Well, it's taken a hell of a beating. Big, clumsy, stupid songs that if you'd been forced to guess what a new Liam vehicle would sound like is probably exactly what you would have, with a shudder, described.

It's exactly what you'd expect in that it sounds like the most mundane and indulgent Beatles and Oasis numbers have been mashed together, watered down and then pissed out. A part of me wanted Andy Bell and Gem Archer to step up to the plate and deliver something not necessarily spectacular but that would at least be interesting in a small way.

Instead, it's more of the same just a little bit less polished, lyrics crudely hewed, the swagger and sneer still much in evidence but sort of sad, an old man stumbling as he shadow boxes rather than a youth giving two fingers to a world that doubted him.

Perhaps this curmudgeonly collection would fair better live where the arrogance can fill the stage, presence where it's needed. On record it's like being trapped in a broken lift with a drunken ape that won't stop jabbing at the damn buttons.

Does our kid need his big brother to lead his band? Frankly, I don't care anymore. My hope flaps uselessly against the dirty window that is this album, wings turning to dust, sustained only by the few fading sweet moments on this record. For when he sings instead of sneers, when they drop the arrogance from the beat there is a hint of innocence, the merest whiff of vulnerability. It's enough to let me look back over the years to the love I once had and smile before moving on once more.