Don't Believe The Truth    • Don't Believe The Truth   • Oasis
Watching Oasis' precipitous decline from Brit-pop superstardom
has sort of been like watching the Yankees blow it last October:
You knew they had it coming, but it was still kind of sad to
see. Don't Believe the Truth, their seventh album, isn't the
comeback fans have long been praying for, but it's the first
Oasis album in years that doesn't sound like pale self-
imitation. The bigger presence of guitarist Gem Archer as well
as an increased emphasis on texture — including plenty of
subdued psych-rock atmosphere — rescue confidently rockin'
winners such as "The Meaning of Soul" from the kind of
dunderheaded grand gestures Oasis had gotten increasingly worse
at writing, and tracks like "The Importance of Being Idle"
channel laid-back Sixties-pop cool. So: Now that they've fought
off complacency and cocaine, can we get that Behind the Music
episode?