Liam Gallagher John Squire
Liam Gallagher John Squire WARNER
First fruits of the two-man collaboration, and hugely enjoyable.
Collaborations don’t always work. When you have too many big names in a group, sometimes the result is more like standing on the toes of giants than standing on their shoulders: the combination of two or more rock legends often tends to dilute the result, not enhance it. In this case, however, it all seems to have turned out all right. Maybe it’s because Liam Gallagher (vocals) is a fan of John Squire (guitar) and so is on his best behaviour. Maybe it’s because John Squire has got someone he can work off – after all, it’s the first time he’s worked with a singer. Whatever it is, the combination of Gallagher’s untrammeled vocal blasts – he sings on this record like if John Lennon was a cannon – and Squire’s enormous slabs of riffs works perfectly. It’s very stompy, which is a good thing, and sounds throughout like the final days of late psychedelia as it turned into 1968-era heavy rock: very heavy, and far from humble. True, there’s the usual Lego aspect of all post-modern guitar music: if you think you’ve heard this song before, you have. Mars To Liverpool stomps along like a dazed Godzilla on a riff that’s often similar to Lou Reed’s version of