After Oasis’s mid-’90s winning streak ended, their following pared back to its core of louts, hooligans and mouth-breathers. The rest of us have missed only an occasional belting single, such as “Lyla,” from 2006. And though Dig Out Your Soul is not mid-’90s in quality, its newly gloomy stomp and deafening, saw-tooth guitars recall a time when Oasis were thought dangerous. The two awful songs—“Waiting for the Rapture” and “(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady”—and fridge-magnet Beatles lyrics (“Love is a litany/A magical mystery”) are par for the course, and the payoffs include the two best songs singer Liam Gallagher has yet written: the strident, balladic “I’m Outta Time” and the snarling “Ain’t Got Nothin’.” Overall, Dig Out Your Soul is a dark, heavy, chart-snubbing record that acts Oasis’s age (main songwriter Noel Gallagher is 42) and is their first in eons that doesn’t seem desperate to please. Oasis have their devil back.

DOWNLOAD “The Shock of the Lightning,” “Bag It Up”