Already hailed as his best collection of songs since 1993’s Wildwood, As Is Now,, the modfather’s tenth solo album, quickly follows last year’s covers collection Studio 150. It’s certainly the most energised and stylistically wide-reaching of all his solo albums to date, bringing together pretty much every musical direction he’s taken in a career that stretches back almost 30 years.
Throughout we get shades of the angry young man fronting The Jam, the Blue Note ‘n’ cappuccino jazz textures of the Style Council and the retro rock/soul of his mid-90’ incarnation.
Things kick off in high gear with the guitar-heavy stomp of ‘Blink And You’ll Miss It’ which has late 60s Brit-rock influences written all over it, with strong hints of bands like Traffic and Family. The Kinks are clearly the template for ‘Paper Smile’ a mid-tempo rocker, while ‘Come On Let’s Go’ closely recalls the more soulful late
Jam era. Also, the incendiary ‘From The Floorboards Up’ is as angry and abrasive as anything the likes of Franz Ferdinand or the Kaiser Chiefs could muster.
But those tunes aside, the intensity levels drop dramatically, with most of the 14 tracks epitomised by the folksy acoustic strumming of ‘All On A Misty Morning’ and the dreamy, pastoral ‘The Start Of Forever’ which recalls Nick Drake by way of Love’s Forever Changes. And rarely have we encountered a Weller as mellow as on ‘I Wanna Make It Alright’, a soft shuffle with Curtis Mayfield stylings. The closing track, the introspective and cinematic ‘The Pebble And The Boy’ sounds like a Pete Townsend outtake from Quadrophenia (The piano intro is closely modelled on that album’s ‘Love Reign O’er Me’).
Something for everyone, then – but only a Jam reunion will satisfy his most ardent fans.