Warner Bros Records
4/5

The unfairly maligned Beady Eye may not have set the world alight but the younger Gallagher brother’s solo debut is everything you could reasonably hope for.

Perhaps conscious that he’s not the finished article as a songsmith, Liam’s drafted in some pop heavyweights to shore things up. Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia, Beck) and Dan Grech-Marguerat (Lana Del Ray, Hurts) are on board to ensure there are no Little James clunkers to be found.

His fiery return to the fray via the spiky Wall Of Glass positively spits with attitude while the introspective Bold apparently reflects on his recent personal problems. There’s plenty of attitude to the no-frills unreconstituted rawk of Greedy Soul and if the lighters-in-the-air Oasis balladry of For What It’s Worth doesn’t hold out an olive branch for Noel, then I don’t know what does.

“The naysayers will no doubt balk at a few eyebrow-raising lyrics, but it’s a hard heart that won’t be impressed by the melodic nous of Chinatown. In fact, Liam’s rarely been in better voice over the last 20 years or so.”

There is no pretence of reinventing the rock’n’roll wheel here, but while there are few, if any, downright stylistic surprises, the thoroughgoing quality of the material makes us thankful Liam hasn’t packed in music to flog Pretty Green parkas all day.