I heard DOYS today, here's my impression (post from STC)

Posted by kenshin03 on Sep 13, 2008 in music, oasis | 0 comments

Ok, so this afternoon (I’m not in the UK btw) I tagged along a journalist friend of mine and went to a listening party organized by Sony BMG. It was held in a small club and I got to listen to the entire album through overhead speakers. There were only a few Sony representatives present, with about 40 ppl from the press in general.

After showing us the TSOTL video, the host dimmed the light and we sat down and listened.

the following are straight from the notes I managed to scribble while listening. I probably misheard most the lyrics.
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1. Bag It Up

Song began with a fade-in followed by a blusey riff. Liam’s voice came on earlier than expected. He sounded coarse and very rough, like Go-Let-It-Out-rough. The words I managed to pick up were “someone told me I’m dreaming…”, “everything I believed in, I wanted more more more…”, “tell me what you desire, I’ll bag it up”, “the freaks are rising from the floor”. This might sound better if Noel’s on vocal. It came to a slow, atmospheric close. I felt like I was watching a intro of a Tim Burton freak show.

2. The Turning

The drums on the intro sounded a bit like Columbia. The heavy atmospheric mood continued. Some lyrics: “Eyes over the city…rises over your soul”, “Come on, shake your — baby, before you change your name” (chorus), “…messiah”. The guitar riffs which served as the solo/bridge reminded again of Columbia, though much shorter. And then the song drained to a close over sounds of passing cars and tinny piano notes.

3. Waiting For the Rapture

Song began with some heavy power riffs, in the style of Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. The riff continued and Noel’s voice came on. He sang in crazily high keys, pushing it further than the chorus of Part Of The Queue. Reminded me of Force Of Nature. A lot of people will HATE it. The outro is a bit like that of Mucky Fingers. Lyrics to the chorus: “she said I’m tired….come pick me off the merry-go-round”.

(they skipped TSOTL, but we’ve heard that a million times)

5. I’m Outta Time

The opening of the sound is exactly what we heard from the NME clip. Lyrics: “can’t get myself some piece of mind, or would you hide behind the light…cos if I have to go….blahblahblah…..and that’s where you belong….” then it closes with “guess I’m outta time, outta time, outta time…”. It fades out and then again leaving only some fainty piano notes hanging in the air. WTF? That’s IT?

6. (Get off your) High Horse Lady

The intro is a bit like Come Together and that funky shuffle beat continues throughout the song. Drums were mixed with hand-claps. The first line of lyric is actually “get off your high horse lady”. Sounded quite heavy. The chorus went something like “I don’t need a right to —-, lay down — —-”. It dragged on a bit and got tedious. For the outro there’re some footsteps (NME said it’s the sound of closing drawers, anyways).

7. Falling down

Well, this song fitted right in with what was heard so far. Make no mistake, apart from TSOTL, this is the most melodic song on the album. The ending faded into the start of the next song.

8. To Be Where There’s Life

(I didn’t listen to the bootleg versions)

Great! Some Live Forever like drum intro. Liam’s vocals are excellent and the the rhythum is quite upbeat. I could only make out the lines “Let me come through….let me take you…”, “…wayyyYYYYY (stretches for a long time) over the line”. The bridge/solo type was filled with sitar like Indian sounds. It sounded quite good and special.

9. Ain’t Got Nothin

This sounded like the leaked version. Nothing dramatic was changed in the arrangement or anything. Was over too quickly. I couldn’t really make out “a brawl being played out” scene as Liam described.

10. The Nature of Reality

Intro began with some cicada or buzzing insect-like noises, before a wave of guitar feedback poured in. “The nature of reality…is —- fantasy…it’s only in your mind…..” is the first line of lyrics. There were tons of high pitched guitar fills and jams not unlike something you get from a White Stripes album. Finally! There was a guitar riff long enough to be called a tiny solo. The song ended with Liam’s howl of “mind” melting with long guitar feedbacks. Quite cool.

11. Soldier On

The verse featured a line “Shine a light for me tonight”, and the chorus is just six fucking LA-LA-LAs in rising and falling tones! And before you know it, it slowed to a close, with Liam repeating the words “soldier on” for a while, then some squeeching noise and then, silence.

The listening sesion finished with the host inviting two reputed local music journalists to share their views (more on that later).

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Impressions:

- My head felt stuffed. After two hours, the weight of that sound hasn’t subsided. It’s like the after effects of watching The Dark Knight or I’m Not There, where you feel punished with heavy headaches for being too focused. The message/effects/weight were overwhelming, and worst of all, I could’t really decide whether it was GOOD or BAD.

- This does not sound like an Oasis album. Seriously. Not at all. If TSOTL hinted a comeback of the BHN sound in a more polished way, Noel really should apologize for the misleading suggestion. DBTT sounded like HC. DM, WTSMG and BHN are a trilogy. This is something else entirely. This sounded like and an old obscure record by The Verve and Ride. Something only the hardcodest fans learnt to appreciate. Anything off DBTT sounds incredibly tame and thin compared to the sound on this album. Actually, even Viva La Vida sounded commercial compared to DOUS. Love is Noise sounds like a pop-song now.

- There were no singalongs, no big choruses, no standard verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus composition. Or may be there were but they were hidden behind or drown by the massive sonic facade that the trademark Oasis elements become barely noticeable. I don’t remember any specific melodies or hook lines from any of the songs. Fans expecting a resurgence of anthems, or even melodic b-sides like I Wanna Leave In a Dream In My Record Machine woulld initally be greatly disappointed. For those people, I say, hang on to TSOTL like dear life. Mind you, it may be the fact that the music was played from over head loud speakers, but still…

- Noel wasn’t joking when he said he doubted the radio would play anything other than TSOTL. Either he wants to kill off Oasis, or he desperately wants Oasis to be taken seriously and inducted in some Rock and Roll hall of fame somewhere.

To bring in some third opinions, here’s what the two reputed music journalists said when they were invited to share their thoughts on stage:

- “ambitious attempt to pull the 60s sound to the 2000s, at the same time re-defining it and made it belong to this new era”
- very heavy 60s psychedelic sound consistent throughout the entire album.
- Oasis was trying to create an authentic analog sound, and succeeded.
- good production. loads of thoughtful and delicate details scattered around.
- liam has matured a lot and is more like a professional singer now. In the past he just shot the words in a don’t-care attitude, in this album he would change his tone and level of stress in his vocals depending on the pace or mood of the song.
- first three songs were a bit hard to get into. It got better after TSOTL.
- “hope they produce a 5.1 version of this album. it would be the perfect immersive experience.”
- Falling down, TBWTSL, I’m Outta time are stand out tracks.
- Soldier-on sounds like Noel’s revelation of life in mid-age.
- bold, radical new direction for the band who had survived for longer than 10 years.
- their verdicts: 7.5/10 and 7/10.

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