Liam Gallagher delivers the greatest record Oasis never made – the week’s best albums

Liam Gallagher, C’mon You Know ★★★★☆

The last of the rock stars is back, on bravura form. You can tell from the title that it’s going to be a good one. Liam Gallagher has always evinced a snappy turn of phrase, exemplified on his trio of solo albums, As You Were (2017), Why Me? Why Not (2019) and now C’mon You Know.

Because, c’mon, we do know. Love him or loathe him, Gallagher commands attention. He has a singular look that he carries off with panache, a powerful voice that mixes raw attack with bittersweet tinges of vulnerability, and enough swagger to solve the nation’s energy crisis if only we could power the national grid on self-belief. He may work with teams of pop writers to craft songs to match his more musically gifted brother Noel’s great Oasis anthems, but Liam’s got the charisma and conviction to carry it off.

Indeed, C’mon You Know may be the greatest album Oasis never made, in part because it is not slavish in its attempt to relive his own past. Gallagher has frequently admitted he would still rather be in Oasis, the Britpop champions who broke up in 2009 after one sibling spat too far. But building on the stellar success of his reluctant solo career, with two sold-out nights at Knebworth lined up for the Jubilee weekend, Liam has spread his wings here, drawing on a wider range of musical influences than usual, albeit never straying too far from his amped-up-Beatles template.

Everything may remind you of something you’ve heard before, but Gallagher remains a singer who can deliver utopian exhortations and sneering put-downs with equal conviction, even in the same song, as he does on the Coral-meets-Bo-Diddley strum of World’s in Need, a peace-and-love ditty with sideswipes at “drips” and “snowflakes”.

The opening track More Power unabashedly emulates the children’s choir from the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want for an anthem of epic yet empty profundity. Does anyone apart from Liam himself think he warrants having more power? What would he do with it? “I’m floating like a lion in the ark,” he bafflingly proclaims over the slinky, Stone Roses-style groove of Diamond in the Dark. Meanwhile, on the glorious psychedelic pastiche Don’t Go Halfway he depicts himself “In the back of a cab, spangled as a flag in America”.

He vents his spleen with declamatory Mark E Smith vitriol (“You’re the sole prisoner taken in the info wars!”) on rowdy Stooges-style rocker I’m Free, locating an extra syllable in the title phrase (“I’m free-ah!”). He reheats the Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows (again) on Chemical Brothers-style electro-rock belter Better Days, and there’s a brace of phones-aloft, it’ll-be-alright-in-the-end ballads that will go down a treat at Knebworth.

Gallagher has a hand in every song, although a Venn diagram of his collaborators would find links with Miley Cyrus, Lorde, Lady Gaga, Adele, Beyoncé, Lily Allen and Kylie Minogue. Foo Fighter Dave Grohl thunders on drums for Everything’s Electric, and Vampire Weekend’s Erza Koenig plays tasteful piano on Moscow Rules, an intriguingly baroque ballad that showcases Gallagher’s softer tones.

There may be something mercenary in the former firebrand’s willingness to co-opt pop professionals to essentially emulate his estranged brother’s oeuvre, but the results speak for themselves. C’mon You Know is comfortably better than anything Oasis released after 1995’s world conquering What’s The Story (Morning Glory).

Even Noel might be begrudgingly impressed.

Sean Paul, Scorcha ★★★★☆

Every pop superstar, from Little Mix to Ed Sheeran, has borrowed from the tropical flavours and sleek groove of dancehall in recent years. But on Sean Paul’s eighth album, the Godfather of the genre proves that no one does it better.

Sure, there’s nothing on Scorcha that’s particularly surprising, but over 20 years into his career, Paul sounds as fresh and excited as ever. He might show his age on gyrating tracks like Only Fanz (a swaying reggae-infused song about online sex work that sees him singing “she don’t work but I know she works for that”) while Bounce is the sort of typical sexed up anthem of lust and fantasy we’ve come to expect. But by allowing stars like Jamaican singer Jada Kingdom to shine throughout the album, Sean Paul celebrates the scene rather than his own ego.

The thunderous party jam How We Do It is urgent and features a star turn from 24-year-old singer Pia Mia. Meanwhile Pon Di Reel pays homage to Paul’s 2002 smash Shake That Thing, dragging it into 2022 with the help of Stylo G, the next generation of dancehall.

Scorcha really catches fire when Paul takes things global. The Sia-featuring Dynamite feels like a polished radio hit, while the hypnotic Calling On Me sees Swedish popstar Tove La combine her big Nordic hooks with Paul’s more relaxed beats. Elsewhere, funk-rock singer Gwen Stefani adds some grit and ambition to the celebratory Light My Fire. But Paul never forgets his roots, inviting these international stars into his world rather than the other way round.

Sean Paul is a master of party-starting soundtracks and Scorcha is no different. With a guestlist of bright new talent and established legends, it maintains Sean Paul’s legacy and keeps the dancehall flame alight. Ali Shutler

Jeshi, Universal Credit ★★★★☆

In 1982, UK pop duo Wham’s subversive single Wham Rap! celebrated the upsides to being “a dole boy”. Forty years on, British rapper Jeshi takes a vitally different tack. Sure, there’s partying on his remarkable debut album, Universal Credit, but the mood is dark rather than camp, as he doggedly documents life in austerity Britain.

An energetic newcomer who’s already worked with UK soul singer Celeste and released a slew of impactful records, the 27-year-old east Londoner is part of a contingency of British rappers – including Dave, Little Simz, and slowthai – who aren’t hesitant to broadcast the realities of life in the UK with uncompromising attention to detail.

Jeshi doesn’t mince his words on Universal Credit. The references are frank, from the satirical title (he made the album while receiving Universal Credit during the pandemic, and the cover depicts him receiving a giant cheque for £324.84, the current monthly allowance, from besuited men in celebratory style) to the succinct writing within. He offsets a litany of social ills – drugs, knife crime, social media – with mentions of furlough, P45s, and Loose Women, and highly personal tracks such as Two Mums, a hymn to his mother and grandmother, the women who raised him, employing a sense of familiarity and humanity to remove some of the stigma surrounding unemployment.

The album begins with a vignette of London sounds, from bus announcements to the enticing throb of a nightclub, found samples that continue throughout: automated messages from the job centre, a phone alarm that inserts relatable panic into an already angst-ridden record. These snippets help create an enjoyably textured realm, enhanced by Jeshi’s tendency to veer into other genres, from the rave-inspired 3210 with its low synth and clattery beat, to the haunting vocals of Nigerian guest artist Obongjayar.

Jeshi claim a unique space in the UK rap world. Universal Credit is atmospheric and morose, yet never loses its sense of urgency. It’s no cheerful celebration of whatever good times might be enjoyed on £324.84 a month; instead, the album champions endurance in the face of bleak reality. Kate French-Morris  

Def Leppard, Diamond Star Halos ★★★★☆

Sheffield rockers Def Leppard are about to embark on a huge co-headlining stadium tour of the US with fellow metallers Mötley Crüe. With support from Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, the twice-delayed 35-city jamboree will essentially be a festival of Eighties metal.

The Eighties was Def Leppard’s decade: they’ve sold over 20 million copies of 1987’s Hysteria, a monster of an album that spawned seven hits including Pour Some Sugar On Me and Animal. The album was so big that every track on its first side was released as a single. And it will be songs from Hysteria that the one million (and counting) attendees of The Stadium Tour will want to hear. No pressure, then, on the songs from the band’s new album, Diamond Star Halos, that will inevitably get an airing on the road.

It will be of little surprise to followers of Def Leppard that their twelfth album doesn’t mess with the formula (they tried that once, on 1996’s interesting flop Slang). The name Diamond Star Halos comes from the T. Rex song Bang A Gong (Get It On) – an influence on the band – but in all honesty there’s not much T. Rex to be heard in the music. The vast majority of the tracks stick to the band’s tried and tested formula of shiny, crunching mid-paced rock with half-spoken-half-sung lyrics from Joe Elliott and layer-upon-layer of multi-tracked backing vocals. The choruses on songs such as Kick and Fire It Up are suitably huge (their PR blurb describes the first song as an “anthemic stadium-ready frenzy”, and it’s not far off). You can imagine these songs going down a treat in the balmy open-air vastness of the FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland or the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.

But there are some fascinating curveballs here too. Bluegrass-country giant Alison Krauss (currently touring with former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant) guests on two tracks, the best of which is This Guitar. It’s a subtle (by Def Leppard standards) ballad that could well turn out to be a smash in the Nashville country charts. And David Bowie’s long-time pianist Mike Garson adds depth to two tracks. One of these, Goodbye For Good This Time, is a symphonic epic that sounds oddly like the Manic Street Preachers. It’s great, although whether it’ll have them punching the air in the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis remains to be seen. James Hall

Alfie Templeman, Mellow Moon ★★★★☆

The debut album from prodigiously talented 19-year-old Alfie Templeman is an escapist fantasy about living in a faraway place where you’re not distracted by life’s many challenges. Largely written at his parents’ home in Bedfordshire, Mellow Moon sounds like the work of an indie, slightly funky Ed Sheeran. In singing about mental health and – as he puts it – “all the little wobbles of being a teen and figuring yourself out”, Templeman has become something of a Gen Z hero with a sizeable social media following. The songs are anthemic, surprisingly upbeat calls to arms which suggest that Templeman is one to watch.

Templeman, a self-taught multi-instrumentalist who started releasing music aged 15, had a bad lockdown. He spent the early part of the pandemic shielding due to a respiratory issue first identified at childhood. Then he started taking antidepressants to deal with anxiety. But working largely alone, and then with collaborators including Jungle’s Tom McFarland and The Vaccine’s Justin Hayward-Young, he crafted these songs. They all deal with these issues to varying degrees.

In Broken, Templeman feels that he’s “malfunctioning”, while Do It sees him having a “midlife crisis at the age of 18”. His answer? Being carried to the mythical Mellow Moon by five hundred unicorn balloons. It’s a place where nobody’s on your case and it “sure beats staring at the ceiling,” he sings.

If this sounds like heavy going, it’s not. And this is down to the music. Opening track A Western sets the template with a lolloping drum loop and groovy bassline. The gorgeous Folding Mountains is built around a wonky, light-as-air guitar riff that brings to mind Kurt Vile or Blur’s Graham Coxon. Templeman says his “constant cosmic guide” is production wiz and musical polymath Todd Rundgren, and it shows.

Mellow Moon is bursting with ideas. Not all of them are original, mind. Broken’s guitar lick and overall production sounds too like Coldplay’s Adventure of a Lifetime, as does 3D Feelings. With writing chops like his, he doesn’t need to be this derivative. The album’s highlight is Take Some Time Away, with its shuffling rhythm and swooning minor-chord strings. The cover of Mellow Moon looks like a still from TV show Stranger Things. It shows Templeman sitting on his roof gazing up at the titular moon above him. Teenage angst has rarely sounded this captivating. James Hall 

Tate McRae, I used to think I could fly ★★★☆☆

It feels odd to refer to Tate McRae as a rising star. The 18-year-old Canadian pop singer is already wildly popular: she’s totalled almost four billion streams during her career so far, and was one of the youngest musicians to make Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2020, the year she released her multi-platinum No.1 single You Broke Me First. She's been championed by the likes of MTV, Billboard, Apple, and YouTube – where viral fame landed her a record deal with RCA back in 2019. Her lush, brooding music struck a chord with the Gen Z TikTok crowd, her blunt lyricism speaking directly to the contemporary adolescent experience.

For all the glossy hype surrounding its release, her debut album I Used To Think I Could Fly, , a navigation of teenage turbulence and all its heartaches and insecurities, seems surprisingly subdued, kitted out with ballads and hushed confession. But there are punchy, masterful hooks too, and an average track length of under three minutes that keeps things moving. The album begins briskly, with two R&B-inflected tracks followed by noughties pop-punk wannabe What Would You Do? After a lull of slower songs, she nails brattish jealousy with smooth, chugging guitar on faultlessly crafted number She's All I Wanna Be.

Yet there’s something insubstantial about it all, her voice almost too languid to muster the required bite. It’s hard not to mention Billie Eilish when talking about McRae: not only does her team of superstar writers include Eilish’s brother Finneas, but she treads what is beginning to feel like familiar ground, glazing every song with Eilish’s trademark mopey vocal style. Together with her guitar-based tracks that recall Olivia Rodrigo’s streamlined pop-rock, I Used To Think I Could Fly is a competent amalgam of recent trends that sometimes feels a bit anonymous.

McRae is primed for success, though, and while her songs can verge on self-indulgence – there’s a fair amount of navel-gazing at play – they’ll surely speak to a teenage audience. This is well-made, ear-wormy pop music, guaranteed to hit a nerve. Kate French-Morris 

Just Mustard, Heart Under ★★★★★

Irish rockers Just Mustard have said they wanted their second album, Heart Under, to make the listener feel like they are driving through a tunnel with the windows down. And on this noisy, wonderfully chaotic record, the band seems to have nailed it.

After being labelled a shoegaze band when debut album Wednesday was released in 2018, they’ve moved away from genre: Heart Under is moody and dark, with industrial guitars and no typical choruses. Not that this is music to mourn to – the inventive beats make you want to dance. No wonder the Dundalk quintet are attracting so much hype. Their recent signing to indie label Partisan Records puts them alongside Chubby and the Gang and Fontaines D.C., whom they opened for on their sold-out UK tour in 2019. That same year, they were personally selected by Robert Smith to support The Cure in Dublin.

The opening track, 23, kicks the album off like a murder mystery novel set at an eccentric aristocrat’s countrypile: warm and reassuring at first, before descending into madness, the path mirrored by singer Katie Ball’s dreamily atmospheric vocals that are paired with clanging instruments. Blue Chalk and Mirrors continue that messy ethereality, while Seed takes things up a notch with techno synths and a wailing bridge that were made for the live stage. I Am You is an angsty feminine anthem focused on fruitless efforts ("Change my hair / Change my dress / Change my head") to fit in.

The difficult landscape for young artists dreaming of ‘making it’ – studio time is getting increasingly expensive, Brexit has tied international shows in red tape and labels prioritise going viral on TikTok over originality – renders it unsurprising that, in rock at least, it’s easier to create digestible Noughties-style indie than guitar music that is purposefully uncommercial. But Just Mustard don’t care, and choose the more difficult option anyway. Poppie Platt