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Liam Gallagher John Squire review – their best work since Oasis and the Stone Roses

To the surprise of no one, the duo’s prosaically titled debut sounds like a cross between their former bands – and their fans will love it

There’s nothing here that resembles the hypnotic, breakbeat-fuelled, wah pedal-heavy sound of Fool’s Gold, which seems a shame, not least because it might be fun to hear Liam Gallagher sing over a dance beat, something he made a surprisingly good fist of on the Prodigy’s Shoot Down. It doesn’t have a song to match either of their former bands’ widely accepted highpoints – a Slide Away or a She Bangs the Drums – although opener Raise Your Hands comes relatively close, marrying Squires’ dextrous playing to a She’s Electric-esque stomp and throwing in a rabble-rousing chorus and a piano bridge nicked from the Rolling Stones’ Let’s Spend the Night Together. You can, if you wish, raise an eyebrow at their willingness to buy into dad’s war stories from the years when he was mad fer it, but if your tastes run to broad-brushstroke alt-rock, 2024 doesn’t have much to offer and you can hardly be blamed for harking back to an era when it seemed to be setting the agenda.

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