New CDs: Oasis, Dead 60s

Watching Oasis' precipitous decline from Brit-pop superstardom has sort of been like watching the Yankees blow it last October: You knew they had it coming, but it was still kind of sad to see. Don't Believe the Truth, their seventh album, isn't the comeback fans have long been praying for, but it's the first Oasis album in years that doesn't sound like pale self-imitation. The bigger presence of guitarist Gem Archer as well as an increased emphasis on texture -- including plenty of subdued psych-rock atmosphere -- rescue confidently rockin' winners such as "The Meaning of Soul" from the kind of dunderheaded grand gestures Oasis had gotten increasingly worse at writing, and tracks like "The Importance of Being Idle" channel laid-back Sixties-pop cool. So: Now that they've fought off complacency and cocaine, can we get that Behind the Music episode? (CHRISTIAN HOARD)

The Dead 60s The Dead 60s (Epic)

The Dead 60s are four Liverpool boys beholden to the artier side of early-Eighties post-punk, laying spectral keyboard noises over skittish rock-disco grooves and working up basement homages to the Clash's Sandinista! Their debut is packed with rubbery bass lines, ice-pick guitar, dub textures and speechlike declamation, all of which they wrap up in a sheen of detached cool. What's missing are songs. "Nowhere" and "Red Light" could work as Gang of Four-style tension jams, but the Dead 60s sound uninspired, plodding along and deploying near-dadaist refrains like they're just another sound effect. On "Loaded Gun," the Dead 60s rev the tempo and come up with one of the album's few memorable lyrics, but even when they're firing on all cylinders, their grooves are both overstuffed and brittle. Retro, schmetro -- The Dead 60s is just another species of humdrum art rock. (CHRISTIAN HOARD)

Smog A River Ain't Too Much to Love (Drag City)

"Why is everyone looking at me like there's something fundamentally wrong?" sings Bill "Smog" Callahan in his trademark molasses baritone at the beginning of his twelfth album. From there, he digs up non-answers and wry jokes and veers close to self-parody in codeine-tempoed folk depressives that come on like a particularly dreary Raymond Carver story. (CHRISTIAN HOARD, CHRISTIAN DIBENEDETTI)

Four Tet Everything Ecstatic (Domino)

Four Tet wizard Kieran Hebden specializes in glitchy laptop collages that draw on everything from hip-hop to gamelan ensembles. On his fourth album, Hebden's lovingly arranged pet sounds cohere nicely when he jacks up his trip-hop-y beats. (CHRISTIAN HOARD)