Believe it: Oasis's drought is over
The British rock band Oasis, led by famously feuding siblings Liam and Noel Gallagher, skyrocketed to stardom in the mid-'90s with the stellar discs ''Definitely Maybe" and ''(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" and spent the next 10 years in a grim free fall. Bloated production, uneven songwriting, misguided forays into electronica, and the defection of two founding members all contributed to the band's remarkable tumble from rock royalty to tabloid fodder.
Buzz on Oasis's sixth studio album, ''Don't Believe the Truth," in stores today, was hardly encouraging. Tracks from sessions with electronica duo Death in Vegas, the project's original producers, were scrapped. Then Oasis's second drummer, Alan White, left the band. He was replaced by Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr's son, suggesting that the Gallaghers were slipping further still into the Beatles obsession that has brought them so much criticism.
All of which makes the arrival of ''Don't Believe the Truth" a genuine thrill. While the album doesn't recapture the early catalog's euphoria, it's a return to swaggering form: crackling with energy, drenched in hooks, and bristling with roguish charm.
Oasis, and Liam Gallagher in particular, is still fixated on the Beatles, which, frankly, always struck this writer as more of a gift than an affliction. The singer penned three excellent tracks -- psychedelic pop anthem ''Love Like a Bomb," the sneering, dogged ''The Meaning of Soul," and a strummed-and-shaken meditation called ''Guess God Thinks I'm Abel" -- that establish his heretofore elusive songwriting credentials.
Guitarist and chief tunesmith Noel whittled his own set of contributions down to five, four of which he insisted on singing, but they aren't the filler he's been stuffing the last three albums with. ''Mucky Fingers" defines the album's stomping, insistent tone, which grows rambling and heady on the disc's first single, ''Lyla" (the United Kingdom's top seller last week), and turns into a cheeky Kinksian romp on ''The Importance of Being Idle."
Guitarists Andy Bell and Gem Archer, who joined Oasis in 2000, are finally certified as full band members, and deservedly so. Bell's gargantuan, disc-opening ''Turn Up the Sun" and Archer's ''A Bell Will Ring" are as brash and tuneful as anything here -- fine material for Liam's beautifully rude vocals. They also get credit for a textural tuneup that gives ''Don't Believe the Truth" -- and Oasis -- a much-needed jolt of good old psych-rock atmosphere.
It may be foolish to attach any special meaning to the siblings' earnest duet on the album's stately closer, ''Let There Be Love." But the soft-hearted and the hopeful will take comfort in the sound of Noel singing ''just remember I'll be by your side" to his rabble-rouser of a little brother. In fact, the whole album sounds like a retreat from the provocation and rivalry that has dwarfed, if not actually thwarted, Oasis's music in recent years. This one is a big wet kiss for the fans -- and the family members -- who've stuck around.
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. 