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Peter: I’ve been listening to this all summer.

Tyler: It’s been in my rotation, too.  It’s a damn winning LP.

Peter: I think it’s the best thing he’s done this century.

Tyler: Oh my!

Including Oasis releases?

Peter: I think so. He has real peaks on those Oasis albums, but there’s almost always filler. There’s very little filler here.

Tyler: See, I felt that way about Chasing Yesterday, that second solo effort.  I’m hard-pressed to think of a song on it that I don’t at least respect.  And I fucking love Oasis’s final full-length, Dig Out Your Soul.

But, there’s consistency here on Council Skies, too.  We’ve swooned for side A.  Shall we to side B?

Peter: Side B kicks off with “Easy Now.” If Oasis and Pink Floyd had a baby, it would sound like this. He actually asked David Gilmour to play the guitar solo.

Tyler: Oh yeah?  I hadn’t made the Floyd association.  Do we have any record of Gilmour’s response?  Noel-spun interpretations welcome.

Peter: Yeah. They talked about it, but it was during the pandemic and Gilmour lives in the country, etc. I think he just didn’t want to do it!

So, Noel had Paul Stacey, his co-producer, do his best Gilmour impression for the solo. They even got the right guitar rig and whatnot.

There are at least four different people playing lead guitar on this album. Normally that would be a bad thing (See Black and Blue), but here it works. It gives the album a bit of texture. A bit of variety.

Tyler: Were Gem or Andy Bell involved in this one?  I know at least one of them had become High Flying Birds.

Peter: Gem’s on here.

Plus Johnny Marr. And Noel plays a little lead as well.

Anyway, it’s a good tune. I like it.

Tyler: I do too.  It’s a fine example of what this album does so well—brings out the melody, lets things get lush.  And Noel is just in top vocal form.

Peter: Agreed.

Tyler: Onward to the title track.  “Council Skies.”

Peter: Noel (and Liam) grew up in a council estate, which is the UK’s version of low-income housing (I think?). Anyway, here he’s revisiting those days, imagining or recalling a romance under “Council Skies.”

Tyler: This one is…it’s difficult to find the exact adjectives.  Propulsive?  Addictive?  Compelling?

Peter: It’s got like a bit of Bacharach too.

Tyler: Yeah!

Peter: Those horns are great.

I really like the production on this album. They made a bunch of great choices.

Tyler: It’s a very unified work.  Things feel of a whole.

Peter: Yes! I appreciate that. I like for an album to have an overall feel or vibe or whatever it is.

The way Exile transports you to Keith’s basement at Nellcôte.

Tyler: And Noel didn’t need to put that much vision into it.  He could’ve released a few more singles and crammed those releases onto a full-length.  On the contrary—he put together an album here that’s as sure-handed as any of the four he’s released.

Peter: I said this in our initial discussion, but I think we have the pandemic to thank for it. I think he had a lot of time on his hands and he worked really hard on these songs.

I have a funny story about the next song.

Tyler: Bring it.

Peter: “There She Blows!” is the name of the song. Noel said he wrote this after visiting a pot dispensary in California. He bought some weed that was good for “Creativity” which led to this song’s creation.

Tyler: I hope Noel bought that shit in bulk and smuggled it back to the UK.  Because this song is fire.

Peter: It’s a bit like “She’s Electric.” The lyrics are a bunch of nonsense, but you don’t really care because they suit the tune.

Tyler: It slaps.  Dammit, it slaps.  That’s all there is to it.

It’s by far the most rock track on the album.  It lurches and surges.

Peter: Yeah, it’s got a really driving beat.

Things really swell the last 45 seconds or so.

Tyler: I love it.  It’s not precisely my favorite song from the album, because—like you say—it’s a bit nonsense.  But man, for what it is it kicks ass.

Next up is “Love Is A Rich Man.”  Sunny vibes.

Peter: Another winner.

Tyler: If we wanna go all-in and call Council Skies “Noel Gallagher’s Blood On The Tracks,” this song could function as a proxy “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”

Peter: Yes! It’s his Blood On The Tracks! Good point!

Long time readers will know that last time we discussed Noel’s divorce and how this album is like his Blood On The Tracks. I stand by that statement.

Here he sings, “You can run and hide to your happy place/But you can’t deny what’s on your pretty face/That what we knew, it’s not coming back.”

I can see the “You’re Going To Make Me Lonesome” comparison. I can see that.

Tyler: You probably have to squint.

I must confess: our penultimate track, “Think Of A Number,” is kinda my least favorite here.

Peter: Really? I love it! It sounds like The Cure and maybe Duran Duran? I’m kind of shocked. Do you like The Cure and Duran Duran?

Tyler: I’ve got no beef with them, but I don’t know their material very well.

I sense that I’m missing out.

Peter: I’m not a super fan of either group or anything, but there’s good stuff there.

Disintegration is terrific.

But that was the music of Noel’s youth. He’s looking back here. But not in anger.

Tyler: Well played.

Peter: One mustn’t look back in anger.

Tyler: Does no wonders for the soul.

Peter: Agreed.

Tyler: And then, in the end, “We’re Gonna Get There In The End.”

Peter: Isn’t that a bonus track?

Tyler: Nah, it’s on the non-bonus release.

Wait a minute!

The Deluxe version has a track called “Don’t Stop?”

We’ve uncovered a mess.

Peter: There are so many versions now! I never know where the actual album ends.

Tyler: Well, now they’ve done it.

What an anticlimax!  Peter, we went more than three months on hiatus and this is how our return concludes.  On a whimper.

Peter: At least we got here in the end.

Tyler: Bang.

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