Before this review begins, I would like to point out that there will be no comparisons to Noel Gallagher’s album with this one, and for good reason; they are incomparable. Because with this album, Beady Eye have tried to distance themselves from the Oasis sound, whilst still keeping it in their back pocket. After 2011’s blatantly obvious sounding but brilliantly fun “Different Gear”Before this review begins, I would like to point out that there will be no comparisons to Noel Gallagher’s album with this one, and for good reason; they are incomparable. Because with this album, Beady Eye have tried to distance themselves from the Oasis sound, whilst still keeping it in their back pocket. After 2011’s blatantly obvious sounding but brilliantly fun “Different Gear” album the band was ditched by a renowned producer (Steve Lillywhite) and their management (also Noel’s) shortly after. Former Oasis members Liam Gallagher, Andy Bell and Gem Archer knew they couldn’t make the same album with Beady Eye that they did with Oasis; they had to separate their sound.
The album begins with that exact mindframe; Liam, Andy and Gem’s chorus-less and unique ‘Flick of the Finger’ comes out swinging with swagger but also with brains, as it’s one of the best written songs on the record and maybe the best song they’ve ever written. Then, expecting another bruiser for a second track, listeners might be shocked to hear the slow and slightly dark ‘Soul Love’, which is one of many displays of the talents of TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, the producer brought in to inject a bit of experimentation to a band influenced by a strict number of rock bands. Beady Eye are the last group on Earth to be known to use ambience, but it shows up in many places on the record, and more so on the album’s masterpiece bonus tracks. It is an absolute travesty that the beautiful ballads “Off at the Next Exit”, “Evil Eye”, “Back After the Break”, the Monkees-eque “Girls in Uniform” and Bee Gee’s stomper “The World’s Not Set in Stone” were not swapped out for the weaker songs on the album.
Other than the aforementioned ‘Flick of the Finger’, the real highlights of ‘BE’ are ‘Soon Come Tomorrow’, and ‘Ballroom Figured’, two songs in the same vein, but very well written. On the downside, ‘BE’ suffers from sometimes uninspired and overused songwriting.
Beady Eye fall back on their Beatles and Stones past with tracks like ‘Face the Crowd’, the very ‘Revolver’ period “Iz Rite” and the hippie feel of ‘Shine A Light’. A few of these tracks work, but they leave you seeing them as almost filler. The first single “The Second Bite of the Apple” has a great Zombies 60’s sound previously unheard from the group, but has appallingly terrible lyrics. Then, falling back even more, Liam starts again with his brother.
If it wasn’t noticeable with “The Morning Son” on the last record, he comes back with “Don’t Brother Me”, which highlights Noel’s previous success that Liam says he gave him by singing his songs in Oasis, while mentioning his solo success “If I Had a Gun…”. It’s almost sad to see Liam not being able to move on from his brotherly issues. Saying that, Liam’s songs, while simple, get their point across with a less reverbed and more dry and almost angelic delivery from a man who is usually seen as the opposite.
With “BE”, there are a lot of great moments, but not a lot of great songs. If the goal for Beady Eye was to be experimental and different, I think they slightly succeeded, but not as much as I’d hoped. On this album, Beady Eye sound like a band with an identity crisis; torn by the idea of what they want to be defined by. They should have learned a long time ago that they just need to ‘BE’.… Expand
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