Council Skies (Deluxe 2CD)

Product Information

Gallagher began demoing the album in late 2021 with sessions commencing at Lone Star Studios in January 2022. Advance warning that this iffy period might be over came last year with the release of the demos of two songs from Council Skies: the strident guitar pop of We’re Gonna Get There In The End and the almost Champagne Supernova-esque Trying To Find A World That’s Been And Gone. Much like how Arctic Monkeys’ ‘The Car’ employed orchestral strings decisively and carefully, ‘Council Skies’ does the same. Directed by long-time High Flying Birds collaborators Dan Cadan and Jonathan Mowatt, the music video also features a cameo from another Mancunian legend… Sign up for the official Video YouTube premiere here, taking place tonight at 6PM BST.

When discussing the album title, Gallagher said "The title comes from a book by the artist Pete McKee.

The title track is a tinny, chugging slice of 00s indie that seems to go out of its way to produce as generic lyrics as possible (“Cause life is unpredictable / You can win or lose it all”) and although there are a few nods to the bright psychedelia and good-time glam of the band’s previous album, Who Built the Moon?

All tracks have received critical acclaim from media and fans alike, building anticipation for the new record. there is also much greying meat-and-two-veg guitar pop, which occasionally veers into old-man gentleness (see: the actually rather Blur-ish Dead to the World).At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from publications, the album received an average score of 81 based on 11 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".