Just when we thought it was safe to consign most of Paul McCartney’s solo canon to the dustbin of history after decades of underwhelming us with safe, bland tat, along comes his best post-Fabs album since Band On The Run.
That said, this is hardly the apocalyptic event others have predicted. On the upside there’s less of the trademark cutesy-pie melodies and trite lyrics, here replaced by songs of unpredictable structure and layers of sound that tease and tantalise, doubtlessly aided by the production skills of Nigel Godrich. But the twee sentimentality hasn’t been totally banished, as witness the awful ‘This Never Happened Before’.
McCartney plays most of the instruments himself, lending a convincing cohesion and consistency to the overall sound. There’s a welcome, if uncharacteristic, antagonism about the vengeful ‘Riding To Vanity Fair’ that may help slay the ghosts of ‘The Frog Chorus’, and you get a spiritual sense of awe in the smoochy ‘A Certain Softness’ that recalls Wings-era ‘A Little Luck’. ‘Jenny Wren’ is as delicious a song as he’s penned since ‘Blackbird’, the avian connection notwithstanding. ‘How Kind Of You’ lures you in with its deceptive languor, and part of the baroque and self-deprecating ‘English Tea’ doffs its hat to The Beatles’ ‘For No One’. ‘Promise To You Girl’ and ‘Fine Line’ are driven by sturdy piano riffs that complement the melodic thrust evident in both of them.
While it’s often hard to imagine that the sharpness of some of this work has come for the same dry well as ‘Biker Like An Icon’, neither will inspire you to take your Beatles collection to eBay. But it does prove that Paul still has a pulse.