Review: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – ‘Fort Knox’

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have released their second single ‘Fort Knox’ from their upcoming album, but take out your rifles because this bird’s getting shot down.

‘Fort Knox’ is so abject and barren, both lyrically and musically, that it feels like a three minute and fifty-eight-second long interlude that is universally skipped and ignored as a space-filler. As someone who is recognised as having such a remarkable ability to write outstanding lyrics, ‘Fort Knox’ is virtually void of any. However, this is not what makes the song utterly repetitive and rather irritating. Clearly, the band has attempted to shift into a Pink Floyd-type focus, emphasising psychedelic guitar and synths, but ‘Fort Knox’ is unrelentingly screechy and will make you feel more psychotic than psychedelic.

Whilst Liam has clearly shown that rock and roll will never die, Noel seems intent on burying it six feet under. I do not have the foggiest idea why a man with such a clear God-given talent for writing some of the most iconic songs in history has decided to completely change the very essence of himself to try to prove to his brother that he is so much more superior in his stylistic endeavours. Essentially he has lost the plot. In Noel, I now see a man who has succumbed to commerciality, sold his soul to the devil and disavowed everything that makes him the true icon that he will forever be remembered as, in spite of this latest release. Honestly, it gives me no pleasure whatsoever in being so disapproving of the work of an artist I admire, but Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds desperately need to rethink their artistic direction if they are to regain any credibility.

I beg for anyone to show me a song from the entire Oasis discography that is worse than this. Actually, I’ll go one step further, and argue that even Beady Eye did not produce a song worse than this, and trust me that is saying a lot. The only thing impressive about this single is that it somehow managed to be a deterioration from the recently released ‘Holy Mountain’. He’s not just shot himself in the foot here, but he seems to have taken a bazooka to the face.

Who Built The Moon? is out November 24 via Sour Mash Records