Oasis

Los Bros. Gallagher return after their Heathen Chemistryproduced not a banging wallop but a fizzling so-what--the familiar story of two boys who began their careers with two miniature masterpieces (plundered from the Beatles, but what's your point?) and then spent the remainder of their moment in the sun standing on the shoulders of lesser Brit-pop exports to get a better view of distant stardom. Perhaps it was their master plan all along to lower the bar and then leap over it when no one was expecting it, unless they were making bad records on purpose, in which case they're only good on accident these days, which is at least something. Can't say the same for, oh, Lenny Kravitz, another tribute act who can't even do that much anymore.

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More About

• The Beatles
• Lenny Kravitz
• Badly Drawn Boy
• The Velvet Underground
• Pixies

Don't Believe the Truthgrows on you like a fungus--all of it, that is, save for the tune that filches from Soundtrack of Our Lives, themselves a second-rate Who cover band dolled up in Gandolf's wizardly togs, but whatever. And the song that pilfers the riff from the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man"...or is that the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man"? (It's some song with "man" in the title, seriously.) Oh, and that song that sounds like badly played Badly Drawn Boy. Oh, and can't forget that bit that pops a cap in Revolver, or at least could have gone traveling with a few stalwart Wilburys. Come to think of it, there's really one great song on Don't Believe the Truth: the closer "Let There Be Love," one of those anthemic Oasis ballads that escorts you out with a wistful grin and a nostalgic tear shed for a band that used to be great, can still be on occasion and isn't often enough to justify your ever giving a shit again.