Paul Weller: 66 review – Charming and draining in equal measure

The name of this album is a dead giveaway: the clock is ticking for Paul Weller, who turns 66 on May 25th, the day after the record’s official release. Anyone hoping for the unequivocal urgency and brevity of his first three albums with The Jam – In the City and This Is the Modern World, from 1977, and All Mod Cons, from 1978 – can walk away now. On this batch of 12 songs, Weller has no inclination to spark like a faulty fuse.

Instead it’s a reflective piece of work – a first cousin of True Meanings, his acoustic album from 2018 – that blends shades of Nick Drake’s folksy musings, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Beatles-style pop with introspective lyrics.

If the palette veers towards magnolia too often there is, thankfully, an occasional plum of a song that adds blusher. More soporific tracks such as Sleepy Hollow and In Full Flight, for example, are countered by the pin pricks of other tracks.

Ship of Fools and Flying Fish have couldn’t-be-bothered sensibilities about them, from the jazz-lite flutes of the former to the Oasis dirge of the latter. Jumble Queen rocks ever so lightly, bolstered by brass inserts that cheerily tip a hat to Dexys Midnight Runners.

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My Best Friend’s Coat is a baroque pop buzz that sounds like a mash-up of faintly recalled songs by 1960s one-hit-wonders Peter Sarstedt and Noel Harrison.

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The album continues like this, draining and charming in equal measure. There are a few knockouts that prevent the listener from falling asleep at the wheel. I Woke Up is a sublime, orchestral channelling of prime-time Paul McCartney. Rise Up Singing also benefits from Hannah Peel’s swirling string arrangements, while the album’s closing track, Burn Out, sounds like The Beatles’s Abbey Road suite partnering with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

For an album that, according to Weller, investigates topics of “faith, changing circumstances, and the fractured realities of life in this turbulent age”, there is surprisingly little to suggest he is overly anxious about such things. Seventeen solo albums in 32 years is just the right number to pursue one’s creativity without becoming self-indulgent – and being still very much in the game at 66 is no mean feat. But a bit more grit in the diet wouldn’t go amiss.