Don't Believe the Truth

11 tracks. Small hole in barcode art.

Oasis albums have always prompted flashbacks--Was that a Beatles melody? Is that chorus on loan from T. Rex? Wait, wasn't that a Crowded House song once? But the mouthy British group's latest really sounds like a pop artifact. Both in production and execution, Don't Believe The Truth feels like an album better suited to 1965 than 2005. From the tambourines and jangling guitars that chime in opening track "Turn Up To The Sun" to the tinny pre-hippie philosophizing of "Keep The Dream Alive," it's an album that thinks the way forward is by looking back. First single "Lyla" borrows its opening swagger from the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man," while "The Meaning of Soul" lifts the Small Faces' mod jitters wholesale. But hack through the clichéd lyrics and worn riffs and the most important element on the follow up to 2002's Heathen Chemistry remains distinctly Oasis' own: Attitude. And in such wonderful abundance, "No one could break us/ No one could take us," they sing. --Aidin Vaziri