Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

★★★★

Back The Way We Came Vol. 1 (2011-2021) SOUR MASH. 2CD/DL/2LP

Retrospective feast from his inaugural solo decade.

In the fledgling Oasis interview documented on 1995’s Wibbling Rivalry, the Gallagher brothers were already arguing about musical evolution, and when the band split in 2009 they’d proved unable to evolve satisfyingly beyond Morning

Glory’s anthemic humungity, stuck, to quote Noel, in “gression” mode. Since freed of stadium obligation, Gallagher Sr talks of his solo career as “like a flower unfolding” (see MOJO 332). That image holds good for this roughly chronological 18-song canter through his first 10 High Flying years, as tight-arsed neo-Manc strictures quickly loosen to allow delicious infusions from Chicago, New Orleans and Brazil. By CD2’s selections from 2019-20’s three EPs, ethereal disco (Black Star Dancing) and untethered joy (A Dream Is All I Need To Get By) are the defining characteristics. Two new gospel-voiced cuts, the slow-burning We’re On Our Way Now and the breezy, Style Council-ish Flying On The Ground, complete the sense of spiritual uplift.