Written by: Alex Green

When Liam Gallagher and John Squire announce a new collaborative album is on the way, the myth-making process kicks into gear when imagining the results such a pairing of the former Oasis frontman and the Stone Roses’ guitar player might yield.

Even Gallagher himself got into the myth-making business, declaring their upcoming album is better than the Beatles’ Revolver.

On paper, the grafting of these two titanic talents seems like it would deliver something seismic. In other words, chances are good that the two might very well hit stratospheric pop heights that haven’t been hit in quite some time by anyone.

With the release this week of the duo’s first single “Just Another Rainbow,” the question of whether or not those heights were hit gets quickly answered.

Sort of.

For starters, “Just Another Rainbow,” sounds fantastic. Gallagher’s voice is untouched by time and it’s redolent with his trademark lippy snarl. Meanwhile, Squire’s riffs are legendary; he positively dominates the second half of the song with a brilliant, cascading solo that brings to mind not only the ‘Roses but what the ‘Roses might have sounded like in 2024 had they stayed together and made all the albums we were sure they were going to make way back in 1989.

It’s still a bummer to talk about Oasis and the Stone Roses in the past tense, but we’ve sure had plenty of time to do it and “Just Another Rainbow” is the perfect reminder of what made those bands so great. Gallagher is a commanding vocalist whose blend of cocksure attitude and pure pop shimmer make him one of the most distinctive voices in modern music. Meanwhile, Squire is a guitar player of painterly imagination—his elegant blend of psychedelia and bluesy bliss make him one of the most listenable and fascinating practitioners around.

So this is a done deal, yes?

On the surface, yes: with Joey Waronker on drums and Greg Kurstin (Geggy Tah) helping out on bass, “Just Another Rainbow” is a cascading sermon that sounds like it’s being delivered from heavenly heights. It’s philosophical (“I walk the Earth/I search the sky”) and it’s unsatisfied  (“No pot of gold/Waiting here for me”) and it spirals down the Britpop mountain with delicious musical flourishes that make it one of the most listenable songs in recent memory.  A rainbow is a sign that you’ve weathered a storm and the payoff is a temporary technicolor beauty painted across the sky. Gallagher is so unimpressed by the pyrotechnics of the natural world that it’s almost amusing and his boredom comes with a ringing defiance that’s oddly satisfying.

However, Gallagher’s reading out of the colors of the rainbow at 2:20 feels a bit much, and this unnecessary roll-call temporarily stops the momentum of the track. (Even he seems to know this when he mutters: “We’ve crossed a line…”). Thankfully, this is where Squire takes over and just positively dominates the rest of the song with a masterclass of echoing, chiming beauty.

The trouble is that “Just Another Rainbow” feels like a preamble that never gets to the actual heart of the matter–in other words, there’s no catchy chorus and no soaring liftoff, which is a problem that has bedeviled Gallagher since leaving Oasis. This surely could have been solved by Noel Gallagher, but that’s a separate, far more complicated discussion.

“Just Another Rainbow” may lack the sonic satisfaction we were all looking for, but this is just a first taste, so there’s no need to panic. The upcoming album might be brilliant and this is just a little teaser. But this little teaser feels so much like a middle-piece it would be like the ‘Roses releasing “Don’t Stop” as their first single. There’s nothing wrong with “Don’t Stop” and there’s nothing wrong with “Just Another Rainbow” and perhaps, like the former, in the context of an album, the song will take on a new life.

For now, Revolver need not look over its shoulder on Mt. Olympus.

But something tells me it wasn’t anyway….