66

Chronique

After 17 solo albums Paul Weller, the ex-Jam, ex-Style Council frontman, can write across a wide music spectrum. Three years in the making in his home studio, 66 is promising, if puzzling, early on with "Flying Fish," a keyboard-fired dance floor filler with a likable chord progression and a four-on-the-floor, high hat-led beat that winds down (or up?) on a more rocking coda. The chugging guitars, horn accents, and anxious whispered vocals that come later on "Jumble Queen" are reminiscent of a Bowie outtake, with its emphatic chorus, "Take what you want/ Take all that you want from me." On the next track, "Nothin," Weller, who has always had a soft spot for soul music, goes sleek and sexy with keyboards and horns, including a muted trumpet darting in early—adding just a hint of Miles Davis. So far, so good. From there, his pop instincts and creative judgment gives in to flutes, lullabies, and the enveloping marvellousness of being in love. Guilty pleasure "Rise Up Singing" is exactly what the title implies—a big, lush cinematic pop ballad.  But the lyrics of sweeping jubilation are banal: "Rise up singing to the day/ I feel free rising up and high/ So loud it's gonna make you say/ So glad I opened my eyes." This wide-eyed love mood continues in the subdued "A Glimpse of You," where Weller, surrounded by layers of undulating keyboard fluffery, is in creaky crooner mode but doesn't quite sell lines like, "Into a symphony I/ Lose my way/ I feel an ocean as I/ Dance away/ As a day so new/ To find a glimpse of you."  A chorus of female voices accompanies the overwrought ballad "In Full Flight."  Thankfully, an edge and a rhythmic beat return in "Soul Wandering" to pull the album out of its overly soft center. Outside of the sappy tracks, his familiar creative modes are all expertly revisited but ballads are labored. Too much happiness can make you blind. © Robert Baird/Qobuz