Wish all musicians age this good...
09/27/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The British may never get over The Jam's break up, initiated by a singer that seemed perpetually inflicted with sinus problems. Then came The Style Council who have had a top 20 hit or two. Over the course of a quarter decade, and having continued solo, Paul Weller has unabatedly written about innocence--lost, regained or absent. This time he hits the mark and with a supernova normally reserved for folk/guitar-dubbed-vocals artists.
Having just obtained my import copy of Illumination (USA release date is still unknown) from Amoeba Records, I popped-in the disk in my player and proceeded east on Haight. Every song underlines a phrase purposefully erased from one's memory for failure of having it resolved. The is the innocence that many failed to see on this quasi-dramatic stretch in San Francisco due to their drug-fogged eyes. Weller speaks a similar story on title track, a slow and coming of age incision-painful ballad, "I'm in a moving film/ it's black and white/ and beautiful/ and it has no end to write"--backing choir alone should take you down a Carmina Burana-type memory lane.
Impeccably produced by Weller himself, and not shying from tricks borrowed from that 0's and 1' realm, it starts where his eponymous debut was headed ('Going Places', a song to impress your dinner guest and 'A Bullet for Everyone', which could have easily been Morrison Hotel's opener). Stereophonic's Kelly Jones sounds better than she ever has on duet 'Call Me No. 5', for which she penned the words, recalling wild west themes riding seventies Brit-rock waves ("I was holding up a drug store/ my gun was soaking wet" atop Weller-arranged early-blues-meet-rock piano trills.)
Weller seems to have found a cure for his nasal congestion. That along with Carleen Anderson and Jocelyn Brown's backing chorus makes for some of the best medley mood songs, especially when a string section is added ('Standing Out in the Universe' and 'Leafy Mysteries').
Noonday Underground's Simon Dine inserts his 'London' touch by writing music to cigar bar opus 'It's Written in the Stars' and love/make-up tune 'Now the Night is Here'. Multi-instrumentalist Noel Gallagher provides bass and percussion, while ex-Oasis bassist Gem Archer gives a warming performance of acoustic guitar on 'One X One'--a dreamy-toned ballad of magnanimous amplitude. (Q: what's connects Oasis and Paul Weller? A: their drummers are brothers.)
Unarguably Weller's best work, The Jam's notwithstanding, it serves to prove that some musicians age with grace. He and Bob Geldof make the case for why some musicians should not stop because there are always higher-crested waves, and why Stonesian others should halt while they're on top."
