A POPULAR theory has it that culture operates on a 20-year repetitive cycle, and in the case of Sleeper and Shed Seven hoiking their mid-table Britpop wares on the road recently, it rings true.

Noel Gallagher’s Oasis annihilated sales records in late 1997 with their LP Be Here Now, as his beloved Manchester City were free-falling towards the third division.

Yet flash forward two decades and City are English football’s stylish standard-bearers and Gallagher has sunk a division or two from rock’s Premier League since a brutal burning of brotherly bridges.

On Who Built The Moon?, Noel and his High Flying Birds launch with Fort Knox, a hotpot of swirling Mancunian melody and everyman “Got to get yourself together” chant.

The single Holy Mountain bears glam-rock charm, She Taught Me How To Fly might have been touched by the hand of Hooky, and Gallagher strives throughout to present a playful, inventive self.

David Holmes twiddles the knobs, Paul Weller and Johnny Marr make obligatory cameos, and the end product is not nearly as faded 1990s rockstar as seemed inevitable.

6/10 — John Skilbeck