Liam Gallagher: C’mon You Know — former Oasis singer is full of swagger and sentimentality

The title of Liam Gallagher’s new album adds to the former Oasis singer’s stock of catchphrases. C’mon You Know joins other Gallagherisms such as “let’s have it”, “mad for it” and “as you were”. Lexicographers searching for derivations will alight on a Liam communique sent by tweet in 2020 to his estranged brother Noel, belligerently pleading for an Oasis reunion: “What we saying we having it or what c’mon you know.”

There was no reply from Noel. Always fractious, his and Liam’s relations were at a nadir, having collapsed into enmity and recrimination after Oasis broke up in 2009. The band’s decline had been protracted, measured out in bad-tempered gigs and subpar records. When it came, however, the end was sudden. There was a confrontation before a show in Paris, leading to a guitar belonging to Noel getting damaged. He walked out. The final curtain fell in a heap.

As principal songwriter, Noel was expected to thrive afterwards. But his solo career with his High Flying Birds backing band has been unspectacular. Instead, Liam has stolen a younger sibling’s march on him. The younger Gallagher’s post-Oasis band Beady Eye was, as the name suggested, awful. But his solo releases, starting with 2017’s As You Were, have outpaced his older brother’s work.

Made with an experienced set of songwriters and producers, Liam’s albums have tapped into Oasis’s enduring popularity (the damaged guitar from their break-up recently reached €385,000 at auction). His songs resemble placeholders, biding time for the reunion for which Liam longs but Noel resists. While he holds out, the junior Gallagher keeps the Oasis flame going with legacy events such as a pair of sold-out shows at Knebworth Park next month, scene of his old band’s apotheosis in their 1996 prime.

C’mon You Know is full of swagger and sentimentality, key Oasis attributes. “Is this what you came for?” Gallagher choruses as opening track “More Power” swells its chest into a grand Britrock anthem. The usual touchstones run through the album, the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Who and, of course, The Beatles. But the 12 tracks — made with regular production collaborators Greg Kurstin and Andrew Wyatt and featuring guest turns from Dave Grohl and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig — show his solo work developing its own character, too.

“I’m Free” illustrates its message with eccentric switches between Hendrix riffs and dub reggae. “Everything’s Electric”, with Grohl on drums, is pedal-to-the-floor rock with polished pop-rock choruses. “Moscow Rules”, co-written by Koenig is a surreal orchestral-psychedelic trip with a nonsensical title that has been overtaken by events. In case true believers start fidgeting at these stylistic quirks, “C’mon You Know” revs up the Oasis motor with rumbling riffs, handclaps and gospel vocals. “I think it’s coming home again,” Gallagher sings insistently.

He is in good voice throughout, a needling, charismatic presence at the microphone. Lyrics are split between rhyming dictionary folderol, like the girl from Camberwell who gives him hell in “Don’t Go Halfway”, and carpe-diem sloganeering. Gallagher utters these positive-thinking exhortations with unsmiling intensity, a life-coach in a parka with hands folded behind his back. C’mon You Know illustrates the unspoken catchphrase of his solo career, “Give them what they want” — but it also steps beyond it.

★★★☆☆

‘C’mon You Know’ is released by Warner Records