British Pop Oasis Turns Ambitiously Beatles-Esque And Pink Floydian In Its Latest Album

Oasis “Be Here Now” (Epic/Sony)

The first thing you hear on “Be Here Now” is about 20 seconds of sound effects. An airplane in flight, soaring and buzzing through your speakers. Staccato computer sounds chirp; then a grinding, tantalizing electric guitar riff enters, and you’re thinking, “My God, has Pink Floyd finally made a new album?”

No, it’s the bad boys of British pop, Oasis, indulging in a bit of Floyd-ian stereophonic grandiosity, a notion that beats within the heart of many a scruffy rocker. The device also serves, somehow, as a signal: This is not just a collection of songs, but something more, an important body of work.

More about that later. The CD came out Tuesday on Epic/Sony.

Oasis, led by guitarist-songwriter Noel Gallagher and his younger brother, singer Liam, has never lacked for ego. On the band’s first album, the 1994 “Definitely Maybe,” Liam (singing Noel’s words) proclaimed himself “a rock ‘n’ roll star.”

But the adjectives applied to the brothers by others are “battling” or “brawling.” They’ve been tabloid darlings in the United Kingdom. They’ve had punch-ups; Liam has refused to return to the stage for encores; they’ve not been shy about their fondness for alcohol and illegal substances. (Liam was nabbed for cocaine possession, then let go.) The Manchester-based brothers, second-generation Irish immigrants and lads of the working class, are the Ray and Dave Davies (remember the Kinks?) of their generation.

Two years ago, Noel was asked about Liam’s input and whether it made for any creative tension between them. “Well, really,” Noel said, “there is no creative tension ‘cause I create all the songs. I just give it to him and he sings it.” If there are clashes, he added, they happen because “he’s got a pretty big mouth and I haven’t. He’s usually always wrong; I’m usually always right.”

So what shows up as the second song on “Be Here Now”? It’s “My Big Mouth.” Sung by Liam, written by Noel: “Into my big mouth you could fly a plane.” Recently, Noel stepped into John Lennon’s shoes when, asked (by the English music paper NME) that hoary old question about whether his band was more important than God, he responded, “I would have to say without a shadow of doubt that that is true.” So whose big mouth are we talking about?

It’s second nature for the Gallagher brothers to step over the thin line between confidence and arrogance. On “Magic Pie,” Liam sings, “I’ll have my way/ In my own time/I’ll have my say/ My star will shine.” Part of you wants to slap him upside the head; part of you identifies and buys into the idea.

The early take on Oasis was that they were the Sex Beatles: a mix of the Sex Pistols’ surly punk snarl and the Beatles’ melodicism. With “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory,” their second album, they shifted toward the more ambitious, more Beatles end of the spectrum.

That movement continues on “Be Here Now” - at least musically. Erasure once titled an ABBA tribute EP “Abba-esque.” You almost feel Oasis ought to get it over with and title an album “Beatles-esque.” References abound: One song is called “It’s Getting Better (Man!!!)”, and Noel is shameless (or cheeky) enough to marry two Beatles lines with “A fool on the hill and I feel fine” in the first single, “D’You Know What I Mean?”

The album’s epic track, the nine-minute-plus “All Around the World,” is going to stir up “Hey Jude” memories with it’s midtempo pace, its gentle acceleration and it’s “na-na-na-na” vocals. (It also has a shades-of-“Sgt. Pepper” reprise.) The chorus, “All around the world, you’ve gotta spread the word/Tell them what you heard/We’re gonna make a better day/All around the world, you’ve got to spread the word/Tell them what you heard/You know it’s gonna be OK,” circles around ad infinitum. A string section enters to carry the lilting melody heavenward. It’s all “Magical Mystery Tour” hippie-dippy, though there is twist buried in the final verse: “So where you gonna swim with the riches that you found?/If you’re lost at sea I hope that you’ve drowned.” No one said Oasis wasn’t a nasty bunch. The hard-charging, guitar-stoked rocker “It’s Getting Better (Man!!!)” follows until it’s time for the reprise.

Oasis is thinking big, sort of. The band is not tackling the Great Issues of Our Time (it’s more like dealing mostly with snapshots), but the Gallaghers are using massed electric guitar choirs, and they’re thinking long and sprawling. The whole shebang comes in at about 72 minutes.

But Oasis - fleshed out by rhythm guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthrus, bassist Paul McGuigan and drummer Alan White - has the muscle and the melodic chops to pull off these long songs. Noel rarely lets the band drift too far from the big hook. He’s a fan of swelling choruses that stick to your brain like chewed bubblegum to the bottom of your shoe. “Stand By Me,” which offers nothing new lyrically but nonetheless has a catchy, anthemic quality that will probably blare from the radio all autumn. Liam, for his part, will often give the words a sneering, whining quality, mixing cynicism and hope in his own way.