Search - Paul Weller :: Catch-Flame

Blazing Hot Quality Rock and Roll

Kurt Harding | Boerne TX | 02/06/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The industry reviewer has it right: Paul Weller just keeps getting better as he gets older. While I can't claim to have been a fan of his since the days of The Jam, I did come aboard several years ago and since that time have come to discover that Weller is one of the few musicians performing good, basic, solid, blazing hot quality rock and roll for the adult listener. Not that kids can't enjoy his music, they can and many do, but Weller's mature approach to his music is one that is rarely heard in the rock and roll genre.

My conversion has come gradually but became complete with the issue of Weller's As Is Now. Since then, I have been picking up others I have missed. On Catch-Flame, the listener is treated to live and powerful renditions of twenty four songs that span his career. There is nothing here that is not extremely entertaining, save the final song which one reviewer mocked for its "sing-along" segment. I concur on that.

Since there is so much that's good here, I will point out only those songs that particularly fired me up. They are: Blink and You'll Miss It, Paper Smile, Going Places, Up In Suze's Room, the Porcelain Gods/I Walk on Gilded Splinters segued medley, the supercharged rendition of In The Crowd, Come On/Let's Go, Wild Wood, The Pebble and the Boy, Long Hot Summer and the soulful Shout to the Top. If you like intelligent, high quality rock and roll, then Paul Weller is the man you should hear and Catch-Flame serves as the perfect vehicle for a broad overview of his abilities.

WARNING: I have been through three copies of this. In each package, the CDs' holes were too large for the tines to which they are supposed to be attached. I had a spare 2-disc holder laying around, but the holes are too big for it as well, so the problem appears to be a manufacturing defect. The playing surfaces of the CDs were undamaged so the "floating" discs are just an annoyance."