Album Review Liam Gallagher - C’mon You Know

Liam Gallagher has always faithfully carried the torch for meat-and-potatoes rock’n’roll. He even called out his brother for spicing things up too much on 2015’s ‘Chasing Yesterday’. “Just coz you have a SAXAPHONE on your new record and you think your all Pink Floyd,” [sic] he sounded off on Twitter. But on ‘C’MON YOU KNOW’ LG has ripped up his own rulebook - opener ‘More Power’ features a children’s choir, a sax solo rips at the end of the title track and there’s even a drop of dub reggae on ‘I’m Free’. Liam welcomes trusted collaborators Andrew Wyatt and Greg Kurstin back, as well as a host of guest performances from the likes of Dave Grohl, Tove Lo, Nick Zinner and Ezra Koenig. Liam has always been the messenger and not a key creative driver - which he’d be the first to admit - but among these different forces, it’s sometimes a head-scratcher to place where his perspective is in these songs, particularly as he yells “You’re the sole prisoner taking in the info wars.” Clunky political musings aside, it’s great to see him shake things up musically. The chorus of ‘Better Days’ is genuinely blissful, and there’s a lovely Mellotron sequence on ‘It Was Not Meant To Be’. With Liam’s solo career on a high, it’ll be interesting to see where more experimentation leads him next - although somewhat of a mixed bag here, it’s thrilling to see him stray from the formula he knows too well.