Paul Weller – Wake Up The Nation

Nominated for the 2010 Mercury Music Prize. Reflecting the urgency and claustrophobia of city life, the record dispensed with the acoustic, folky and pastoral influences of Weller’s recent work and introduced more jagged rock styles with angry, urban and metallic influences – Diamond Dogs, Low-period Bowie riffs. Very experimental, mostly short songs but with a sense of adventure – often packing a suite’s worth of twists into one song – the updated New Orleans shuffle meets bonkers music hall of Many of the left turns arrive via the arrangements – witness the careening chaos after the chorus of Grasp and Still Connect, or the mutating psychedelia of Andromeda Amongst the experimentation though, Jam fans will love the tightly wound collaboration with Bruce Foxton on Fast Car / Slow Traffic, the dense dangerous heartbeat and militaristic sound collage of 7&3 Is the Strikers Name (featuring My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields).

Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 10th Anniversary Edition