‘Stop the Clocks,’ the final track on Noel Gallagher’s first release since Oasis split in 2009, comes to a close with a dissonant wall of electric guitar and relentlessly pounding drums; it is a complete superfluity, tacked on to the end of a plodding piece of middle-of-the-road melancholy, yet it remains perhaps the most thrilling section of a turgid record.

The most disastrous aspect of Gallagher’s effort is its baffling seriousness and self-importance: as one particularly suspect press release termed it, Noel is convinced of his “basic, unquenchable need to get a message out to the world.” Quite what that message is remains obscured by lyrics dogged by flagrant, even brave clichés: the cloying triple-threat rhyme of “city,” “pretty” and “pity” on ‘The Death of You and Me’ is a highlight made all the worse by the aggravating sense that the songwriter really felt he was on to a winner.

This seriousness and assurance coupled with some rather clumsy execution ensures that things never stray too far from the ridiculous. Opener ‘Everybody’s On The Run’ is an exercise in empty bombast, as melodramatic strings and a grandiose choral backing actually work against the song to reveal the monotonous simplicity of its guitar melody and gratingly ‘anthemic’ vocal. Similarly, ‘Dream On’ features some ill-advised jazzy brass, which sounds so incongruous as to seem accidental: throughout this album, it feels as though Noel has been set loose in the studio with all the skill and subtlety of an untrained puppy.

These songs, just like ‘Stop the Clocks,’ point to the irony that on Noel’s first solo venture he has descended into an overstuffed parody of his previous band’s work. No amount of stadium-gazing studio grandiosity can mask the tired songwriting here, as each song trudges along its tired, well-beaten path in an eerily similar way. Perhaps the best way of summarizing the feel of this record has been provided by Noel himself, with yet another perplexing and meaningless lyrical monstrosity backed by sombre acoustic guitar and piano: “If I had a gun / I’d shoot a hole into the sun / And love would burn this city down for you.”