Nostalgia can feel like an affliction plaguing music – until suddenly, a big backward-facing record comes along that makes that ailment seem not so bad after all. Of all the unexpected products of the current 90s revival, this album-length collaboration between former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire and erstwhile Oasis singer Liam Gallagher (the title simply their full names; henceforth I’ll call it Gallagher Squire) seems so textbook, so route one, as to be almost absurd.
Here is Gallagher, coming off a notable period of solo success with a series of 2024 commemorative Definitely Maybe gigs in front of him, sneering about lassitude on a song called I’m So Bored, passive-aggressively listing things he’s fed up with as only Gallagher, with his chippy hauteur, can. And here is Squire, so long absent from the fray, electric guitar ringing out with affirmative curlicues in between the seemingly random items of clothing, or the times of day, with which Gallagher is bored. Bosses, strikes, war, peace – all these opposites are equal, and such a drag. Twang! If there was a song on Gallagher Squire called Doing What It Says on the Tin, it would not seem out of place. (These lyrics, incidentally, are all Squire’s, but written to suit Gallagher.)
