On Sunset (Deluxe)
In 1989, The Style Council came to a deflating close with their fifth studio album *Modernism: A New Decade*. The record was an early sight of Paul Weller’s appetite for reinvention and reflected his growing enthusiasm for house music. As prescient as that was, heralding British rock and pop’s new interest in club culture, Polydor chose not release the album and Weller was left to dissolve his band. Three decades later, The Modfather has returned to the label, and after a fine run of questing albums that began with 2008’s *22 Dreams*, his ability to reset and reshape with every record continues to delight, even if it’s no longer a surprise. Weller’s at his most playful and flighty on opener “Mirror Ball.” The seven-minute ode to music’s power of escapism cross-pollinates disco, field recordings, electronic abstraction, G-Funk, and six-string discord. From there, his love of funk, soul, and R&B is displayed as vividly as it’s ever been in his 21st-century output, while measures of psychedelia, folk, music hall, baroque pop, and, yep, house are swirled in with laboratory precision and skill. Amid all this adventure sits a lyricist at his warmest and most considered, ruminating on self-control (“Equanimity”), finding peace with himself (“Old Father Tyme”), and tapping into his reserves of righteous indignation to swipe at materialism (“More”) and the elites (“Rockets”).
This warm and experimental release suggests the Modfather's purple patch shows no signs of fading – even the reflective stuff is innovative
At 62, a point when most long-established musicians are content to throw out the odd album as an excuse to do the greatest hits tour again, Paul Weller can’t stop creating. On Sunset is his fourth album since 2015, not including his soundtrack to the 2017 boxing film Jawbone and an EP of musique concrète sound experiments earlier this year. It’s not The Jam’s productivity level, but not far off.
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With enough melodies to appease the feather-cut-dads fanbase, and enough experimentation to slake his own curveball tastes, this is have-your-cake-and-eat-it Weller<strong><br></strong>