After a four-year hiatus following the demise of the Style Council, singer-guitarist Paul Weller again explores his everchanging musical moods on this solo debut. Once the angry young mod of the Jam, Weller chucked his punkish persona in 1982 for the Council's silky indulgences. Yet he never quite abandoned his rebellious stance. The Council's forays into jazz, Stax and Philly soul,
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funk and all-American pop were still spiked with political rhetoric. Weller hadn't lost his edge – he just wanted to sound prettier.
Times change, however: Margaret Thatcher is gone, and on this album Weller has reemerged as a thirty-something Brit with an identity crisis. Wavering between his beloved repertoire of Marvin Gaye grooves and dicier attempts at retro-psychedelia, Weller meanders between both worlds in a haze of self-doubt. Moments of coherent beauty are countered by episodes of confused ingenuity. What might be most disconcerting – but gratifying – is that sad puppy Weller seems to be having too much fun.
Ever the romantic, Weller can still dish out lovely, lyrical gems like "Round and Round" ("Only surface – jus' skin deep/When words fly like angels around your feet") and the anxious sigh of "Above the Clouds." Not content with his smoother formulas, though, Weller derails other songs with jagged introductions, false endings and curious side journeys. The glorious bump and grind of "Uh Huh Oh Yeh" hiccups with deliberate dissonance, and "Clues" collapses into a frenzy of flutes, "Bull-Rush," perhaps the album's most uplifting song, coyly deflates its seriousness and knocks off a Jam-ish nod to the Who's "Magic Bus."
Reuniting with former Style Council cohorts – drummer Steve White, saxophonist Jacko Peake and coproducer Brendan Lynch – Weller doesn't reinvent his sound so much as redirect his anger. "You have to shed that shit to move on," he chastises himself at one point on the penitent "Bitterness Rising." Obviously, the politics of the moment are personal ones, and Weller has never been a diplomat, even with himself. Ultimately, Paul Weller is a therapeutic release for a musician who refuses to roll helplessly in the ashes of his youth but isn't quite sure how to confront the future. (RS 644)
KARA MANNING
