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PAUL WELLER

On Sunset POLYDOR

8/10

Weller’s 15th studio album finds the songwriter exploring worlds both new and familiar. By Peter Watts

WHEN Paul Weller released the nostalgic ruminations of True Meanings in 2018, it might have suggested that having reached 60, the songwriter was ready to give up the sense of adventure that had informed his work since 22 Dreams. Perhaps he was going to ditch the krautrock and electronica for more albums crammed with string arrangements? Maybe he was about to knock out a big-band covers LP of American Songbook classics? The release of “In Another Room” this January scuppered that idea. This limited-edition EP of sound collages and sonic experiments came out on Ghost Box, the label that pioneered the concept of hauntology in music – atmospheric, often avant-garde electronic sounds that evoke buried shared cultural memories. Weller’s contribution to the genre was in keeping with the aesthetic and typically accomplished.

This experience has found its way into , Weller’s 15th album and first for Polydor since The Style Council. The album swings back and forth between now and nostalgia, as Weller tries to reconcile the desire to look back with his constant fear of stagnation. There are several songs that could have been on Style Council albums – solid, sometimes superb, soul anthems like “Baptiste”, “Village”, “Walkin’” – all of which happen to feature contributions from Mick Talbot. But there’s also “Mirror Ball” and “Earth Beat”, both of whichholdover originally considered as a B-side but eventually upgraded to album mood-setter – starts with a gentle waft of strings that gives a whiff of last waltz at the Woking youth club before the lights go up. It then moves gradually through disco, soul and funk as it explores and celebrates the way a physical space such as a disco can maintain meaning through different eras for successive generations.