Paul Weller's all over the place with his ninth solo album—he visits all his touchstones, but there's less nostalgia and more experimentation infused into the tracks than usual. And that's a good thing. About half of the material riffs on Weller's trademark British soul rock; think "Nuggets" for the Britpop set. Swirly pop gem "All I Wanna Do (Is Be With You)" fits right there, as does the co-write (with Oasis' Noel Gallagher) "Echoes Round the Sun," which rides a Bo Diddley beat across a river of distorted guitars, shimmering keyboards and mantra-like vocals. But then there are moments like "Song for Alice," an entrancing, near-psychedelic instrumental. On a grander scale, the closing quartet of intertwining songs is about as far out as Weller gets, veering from a spoken word about deities to a fractured mellotron collage to the mutating soundscape of closer "Night Lights." —Troy Carpenter
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