At its best, “BE” is an adventurous album, which automatically makes it an improvement over Beady Eye’s 2011 debut.

Beady Eye performing live.

By Adam Ellsworth

Five months after Beady Eye’s second album, BE, was released in the band’s native UK (and pretty much everywhere else) it has finally come to America. It would be nice to say the record proves itself worth the wait, but that would be a lie.

At its best, BE is an adventurous album, which automatically makes it an improvement over the band’s 2011 debut, Different Gear, Still Speeding. That album, save for the rollicking “Bring the Light,” is simply boring, Oasis-lite rock and roll. Given that Beady Eye’s core members—singer Liam Gallagher and guitarists Andy Bell and Gem Archer—were actually in Oasis, that’s understandable, though still not really excusable.

To the group’s credit, with BE they have taken something of a left turn, embracing psychedelia in a way Oasis never did. At times, they’re even successful. Opening track “Flick of the Finger” is a revelation, with horns, acid-dipped guitars, swirling rhythms, and a spoken word excerpt from The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade thrown in for good measure. It is a triumph of exceeding expectations through the use of genuine imagination. “Second Bite of the Apple,” the first single to be released from BE, is perhaps less obviously “trippy” than “Flick of the Finger,” but it boasts a superior melody, more clever lyrics, and equal if not greater musical inventiveness. It’s better than every other song on BE, every song on Different Gear, Still Speeding, and, arguably, every song on the final Oasis album, 2008’s Dig Out Your Soul.

As for the remainder of BE, there’s not much to recommend unfortunately. “Soul Love,” the album’s second track, is a little too drowsy, a little too aimless, and more than a little too long, though compared to the rest of the songs on the album it’s a highlight. “Face the Crowd” and “I’m Just Saying” are both embarrassments to rock music—pointless, dunderheaded, and the same “Oasis-lite” drivel Beady Eye peddled on their first album. Even worse, they fly right in the face of the album’s otherwise experimental tone. “Iz Rite” is almost as bad, but ultimately it’s harmless and saved (sort of) by its melodic chorus.

The real letdown is “Don’t Brother Me.” Speaking from a purely musical standpoint, “Don’t Brother Me” is a standout track with a fluid bass part and a gentle, hypnotic outro you can get pleasantly lost in. It’s the yin to “Flick of the Finger”’s yang. But when a member of the Gallagher family writes a song with the word “brother” in the title, you can be sure he’s not speaking generally about a universal brotherhood but literally about a member of his family. In this case, Liam is aiming directly at his brother and former Oasis bandmate, Noel. In the first verse, he even sings, “Did you shoot your gun?” an obvious reference to Noel’s 2011 song, “If I Had a Gun….” (In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that in this video Liam admits the song is about “a brother,” and then points out that he does have two brothers.) Hey, even when they were in a band together the Gallaghers always fought in public, so maybe this is to be expected. But why draw attention to all the bickering on your new album? It’s not like we all don’t know you and Noel aren’t speaking to each other. The best thing for Liam, and Beady Eye, to do is to march on and try to do their own thing. Forget Noel and forget Oasis. On at least two of BE’s songs, that’s exactly what they do. If only they could sustain this for an entire album.

Adam Ellsworth is a writer, journalist, and amateur professional rock and roll historian. His writing on rock music has appeared on the websites YNE Magazine, KevChino.com, Online Music Reviews, and Metronome Review. His non-rock writing has appeared in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, on Wakefield Patch, and elsewhere. Adam has a MS in Journalism from Boston University and a BA in Literature from American University. He grew up in Western Massachusetts, and currently lives with his wife in a suburb of Boston. You can follow Adam on Twitter @adamlz24.