Grasp & Still Connect

In hindsight I may have overrated 22 Dreams. There were great songs for sure, the spirit of adventure was strong and the sprawling stylistic palette was a refreshing change from Weller's often too-conservative solo presentation. But maybe what I needed to hear was what all that dazzling color and energy would sound like crammed into the tight, sub-three minute frames of Wake Up The Nation.

Nothing about this record tries too hard -- the hooks are immediate, the production is varied and inspired without becoming unfocused, the performances are impassioned. It sounds like a hits collection -- like every trick learned and adventure taken by Weller over the past 30 years is represented. There is a lot more 70's art rock than I expected, perhaps -- Bowie in Berlin, Roxy Music's broken-mirror glam and maybe even Scott Walker's icy inversion of the Phil Spector archetype on Nite Flights. To even suggest that Weller would create something that reminded me a bit of David Sylvian ("Pieces of a Dream") would've been hard to imagine before. 22 Dreams had some weird sounding stuff on it, but this album is truly weird -- utterly convincing in its eccentricity and boundary chasing and genuinely psychedelic in a very contemporary way. That Kevin Shields' guest appearance (on the brilliant "7 & 3 is the Striker's Name") is not the wildest thing on the record, or the fact that Weller never sounds at all intimidated or overwhelmed by the dizzying shifts happening around him are a testament to the supreme feeling of confidence radiated by the album -- It's actually brave, actually gutsy.

The usual Weller suspects are also here in fine form, too -- Northern Soul, some Mod stompers (welcome back Bruce Foxton), Beatlesque touches, Curtis Mayfield-style orchestral funk, Nuggets-style psych pop (welcome aboard Bev Bevan) and that dry, soulful voice. One song, "Trees", is something else entirely, though -- to describe it as a mish-mash of all previously mentioned elements plus a touch of Ian Hunter in a series of barely connected sections is to fail utterly to explain how seamlessly it lurches from one wildly different part to another. On an album that already feels a bit like a sampler of everything Weller can do (regardless of whether we knew he could do it or not), this single song is practically a summary of the album in Who-like medley form.

I think a lot of us have been watching this solo career and wondering if it could produce a true classic --a summation of what a middle-aged Weller has to offer in the present instead of an acceptable echo of his past. Well, this is it. And maybe it's the best album of 2010, too.

"7 & 3 is the Striker's Name"