Album Review: Paul Weller

Paul Weller is in the midst of a musical rejuvenation. In 2010, his Wake Up The Nation swept aside his most recent forays of meandering folk experimentations and respectable Britrock (we've got a lodge of Gallaghers to look after that in forthcoming decades). Weller pre-empted the wake-up call that stirred his home nation – there was a fire in his pin-striped suited belly. But while his government shuffled impotently through the riot post-mortem, Weller remains defiantly cogent.

Sonik Kicks is part-two of what might one day become regarded as Weller's Golden Period (or maybe even, the Silver Fox Phase). Seemingly taking his cue from the mayhem of Nation's Fast Car/Slow Traffic mini-motorik homage, much of Sonik relishes in emboldened beats; whether it be Judy Garland-coloured kosmische in Kling I Klang or the intensely post-glam Around The Lake. Those pugilistic rhythms even penetrate the otherwise psych-blues of Drifters. By the time Weller hits Paper Chase, he's basically concocting a toughened-up re-imagining of the genre once known as acid jazz.

Throughout you also hear Weller's past rearing its well-coiffured head, only for it to be re-styled in a manner befitting a 21st century modernist. Green is The Jam's arch-punk in the fumes of Autobahn-rock and Study In Blue is dubbed-up The Style Council while By The Waters is dandified solo-indie Weller.   

How can so many cross-pollinations of genres and sub-genres deliver such a coherent longplayer? Must be all those mod cons working still.