For those of you who do not know, please crawl out from under your rock, Noel Gallagher is one of the founding members of the band Oasis. During that bands time Noel and his brother Liam became legend, not just for their music, but for their on stage fist fights, backstage arguments (which eventually led to a fist fight), and solo antics that made tabloid headlines. Sadly that band is no more and both brothers have gone about putting out solo albums. Liam and the rest of Oasis reformed as Beady Eye and of course Noel as, well, well Noel Gallagher. So what does big brother have to offer the world?

High Flying Birds (maybe that’s a euphemism for something?) is an album that, to me, sits far apart from Noel’s work with Oasis. The album teeters on greatness as well as dips its toe in mediocrity at times. Its power, it would seem, comes from the orchestration of the albums songs and its clever lyrics. Piano’s play from subtle to juke joint rock outs, horns surprisingly pop up adding an interesting but well meshed quality to their tracks, and Noel’s vocals can be amazingly brilliant. Its a release that is confident in its direction, even when that direction flirts with heading in the wrong direction.

Really the only real problems that I found with High Flying Birds was that at times the album can be a bit to damn relaxed. Chalk that up to being an Oasis fan, a band that was by all means a straight rock outfit, where is Noel’s efforts here have a small contemporary value in the mix of things. I also thought AKA…What a life! had to have been the only real track the album could have gone without. It simply reminded me too much of an 80’s tune from a band like Extreme or a later band like Collective Soul. The vocal delivery is to playful, the construction on the tracks music a bit meh. I just didn’t care for it. It didn’t sit well with the rest of the album. In any case it’s a decent album that I can enjoy for a few months but what you get from the first go round is pretty much it. As always final judgment is yours. Enjoy.