Liam Gallagher X John Squire – an honest review

As any other avid indie music fan, I was ecstatic when news came of a collaborative album from two of the most popular names in British music culture. However, after listening to the album, I was left feeling pretty flat.

I’ll be honest with you all, when the album art was released a few months ago, I did not have the highest of hopes, however, in preparation for the release of the album I forced myself to abandon that negative way of thinking and approach the music with an open mind, yet, when I listened to it in full this morning, I was ultimately pretty confused.

Now, I did not hate this album, hence my confusion, in fact, I don’t really know what I feel in the slightest. I think both Liam Gallagher and John Squire are incredible artists in their own right, yet when you put them together, something is just off for me. Now, I am a person who will always talk positive as much as I can, so it is important for me to mention the guitar playing throughout the entire album is PHENOMENAL — John Squire has definitely not lost his touch. He is able to masterfully incorporate some signature Stone Roses sounds with a psychedelic twist, reminiscent of George Harrison’s work on the Beatles’ classic double EP ‘Magical Mystery Tour.’ I’ll be honest though, while I liked the trippy effect on the guitar, I was not a fan of the effects put on Gallagher’s voice to match this type of aesthetic– for me it did not achieve that ‘spiritual, celestial’ vibe that Gallagher has described the album as having in a recent Instagram post, instead it made him sound pretty muffled and quite hard to understand. I would have much rather heard his voice without all of the effects, stripping back to his natural sound.

Lyrically, I really struggled with the entire album. While there are some songs that are set to be in my summer playlist rotation (yes, I am a rare lover of ‘Just Another Rainbow’), others felt completely lacking in direction. The thing that I love about The Stone Roses is how beautiful their songs are lyrically, and while Squire never used his time in the Roses to preach about political matters or overly ‘deep’ issues directly in their songs, the tunes still had a solid meaning behind them and were clearly full of passion. This time round however, I feel slightly let down. Each lyric had no sense of purpose behind it (for reference please listen to ‘Im So Bored’ for reference), even the song titled ‘I love you forever’ lacks a sense of sincerity that I usually link to the works of both Squire and Gallagher. Also, the fact that most of the songs mainly comprised of guitar interludes with a short amount of actual singing leads me to believe that perhaps lyrics were a slight afterthought, which could explain the tenuousness of them.

For me, this album very much felt like a John Squire album featuring Liam Gallagher and did not truly showcase their talents equally. I would have loved to have seen some more tracks similar to Gallagher’s solo stuff, as it suits his voice far more and would have added some much-needed dimension to the body of work.

All in all, I have the utmost respect for both of these musical giants, however I was expecting far more from them both.