COUNCIL SKIES

Product Information

Council Skies takes its title from a book by revered northern illustrator and friend of Noel, artist Pete McKee.

Noel Gallagher's HFB vinyl can always be relied upon and yet again this version is superior to the CD as it is so pleasantly loud and clear sounding and all the songs elegantly segue into the next one. There are some strong songs on “Council Skies”, but it's all pretty much what would be expected from one of Noel’s solo offerings. The title track (and fourth single) - about finding love in Noel Gallagher's pre-fame years in Burnage - is the second best song on the album and sounds like Paul Weller/The Smiths (Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr plays on it and two other tracks) but with more sweeping strings. Noel Gallagher is friends with Bono and Council Skies is like a superior equivalent to U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind (which was for the most part too poppy) in that it is more back to first principles but aspects of the more "far out there" sonic soundscapes remain as the instrumentation is so numerous and rich. His most varied and accomplished solo record to date, Noel’s fourth solo studio album is a record framed by confidence, risk-taking, surefooted creative freedom, and great emotional depth.

After the sensational success of the first two Oasis records, perhaps there was too much pressure on Noel to keep creating globe gobbling anthems and now in HFB it is better as he can just concentrate on writing great songs instead. Council Skies was recorded at Noel’s own Lone Star Sound Recording Studios in London, with the album’s lusciously orchestrated strings recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. Council Skies’ is the highly anticipated fourth studio album from Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. The singles from this album didn’t do much for me as they were gradually trickled out one by one, but as an album in it’s full they all work much better somehow.

There are four instrumental version of song from the album, it’s always interesting to hear tracks without the vocals, but it’s only really works with iconic songs. They have a feel of the mid to later Oasis albums but written in a superior way and more how they should have been done. It is the most Oasis-like of the whole record, will surely please gig-goers who prefer the old material and bridges Noel Gallagher's most famous band with the High Flying Birds’ first album.Overall it’s better than Who Built The Moon by a long stretch in my opinion, but I don’t know if I’ll be going back to this album over and over like I did (and still do) with his first two solo albums. Although slightly more experimentation would be pleasing next time, this is a truly really strong set of tunes - tracks 2-7 are especially magical - and the most complete album of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds discography. The album includes the singles 'Pretty Boy' and 'Easy Now', plus an album version of the previously released demo 'We're Gonna Get There in The End' as a bonus track. The 2019-20 EPs carried on in this path and were largely brilliant too so after almost 6 years without a full album (though there were 9 tracks on those EPs and two on 2021's Best Of which sort of counts as a record) what direction has Noel Gallagher taken now? For items that are dispatched using our standard service, we ask that you wait 14 days from the date of dispatch before reporting any items as undelivered.