In a recent interview Paul Weller rejected the axiom that great art can only be made by unhappy people. Weller, 53, has grown from being an angry young man with the Jam to a spiky older gentleman with a solo career. Along the way he has revealed a creative curiosity that can only be the product of a dissatisfied mind in search of some kind of peace. What happens when that peace arrives? Weller claims it has allowed him to make the best album of his career, but fans may wonder if a sharp edge has been lost with it.
It’s been decades since Weller was the working-class suburban kid, on the outside looking in, writing such classics as Eton Rifles and Going Underground. It’s a little less long since he celebrated aspiration and annoyed his punk/mod fanbase by hinting at gay sympathies with the Style Council.
Now Weller, recently married for a second time, is the exhausted but happy father of young twins, and his latest solo album is an uneven but adventurous collection that showcases the musical palette he has developed over the years. There is a sense of peace to Sonik Kicks, which might explain why it sounds like a pleasing, well-crafted collection of existing styles rather than a great work.
Weller is at his best when he’s speaking directly to the hordes of people — men in particular — who hold him up as the God of Mod, the ace face with the sharpest suit, able to speak for them in ways they never could for themselves. That Dangerous Age uses a fantastic, exhilarating Motown beat and a tune borrowed from Joe Bataan’s Latin classic Subway Joe to tell the tale of an average guy, waking up with a groan each morning to go to his office, lust after a young employee, and wonder where his life went, while still dreaming of escape. It’s a song that both mocks and celebrates its subject, which also happens to be its core audience.
There are great ideas throughout Sonik Kicks, but it sounds like Weller has been rooting around his record collection to find them, maybe after he’s got the twins to bed. Sleep of the Serene combines the kind of string arrangements the late Robert Kirby provided for Nick Drake with space age noises that could have come from the Radiophonic Workshop. Study in Blue goes for a jazz-soul sound reminiscent of Roy Ayers; Green is a psychedelic freakout that recalls early Pink Floyd.
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This all makes for a curious, interesting, adventurous album, but not one that surpasses the sum of its influences. That may sound harsh but Sonik Kicks lacks the unique quality of a great record. Contentment has given Weller the mental space to craft songs that draw on the styles he loves. But you don’t hear the urgency of a man doing this because he has no choice. (Island)