Sunset boulevard - Paul Weller’s West Coast album

You know, it's actually become boring to talk about Paul Weller’s rich vein of form. Because, for a purple patch, it's been going on a mighty long time. His 15th solo studio album, On Sunset, continues an output that has averaged an album every two or three years since his self-titled solo debut, incredibly, 28 years ago. It's a rate that puts most of his contemporaries - even an Elvis Costello - to shame. Much, I suspect, has to do with the restless spirit that has always charged Weller’s creativity, not just in having something to say, but also a yearning to try something new each time, dipping a quill into the different shades of ink from which the now 62-year-old has drawn his influences.

On Sunset marks another change of course, veering from the reflective, folky vibe of 2018's pastoral True Meanings, to a decidedly sunny, open-topped outing. As the title might allude, it’s an excursion into the blue skies and free'n'easy living of 1970s Los Angeles: effortlessly cool, intriguing by turns, melodically pleasing and incongruously soulful for an album crafted in deepest Surrey (Weller’s work-from-home location, Black Barn Studios in the village of Ripley - Eric Clapton's birthplace).

“Everybody likes a good tune, regardless how it’s dressed up,” Weller told GQ’s Dylan Jones recently. “Luckily, melody comes relatively easy to me – it’s a very natural part of the writing process. You’re often trying to find new ways of saying the same thing, but I can always rely on melody to see me through.” And thus it proves, with 10 tracks (15 if you buy the ‘deluxe edition’) of joyous songcraft, most making authentic nods to the '70s soul and R&B influences that, like the more orthodox mod traces of The Who and Small Faces, have fed Weller’s musical subconscious.

Perhaps, most surprising, is the unabashed West Coast association. The likes of Down In A Tube Station At Midnight and Stanley Road may have given the wrong impression of a narrow, Anglo-centric scope, but a visit last year to his son in Los Angeles brought about a reawakening to the City of Angels. “I stayed at this funny little hotel just off the Strip [Sunset Boulevard],” Weller told Jones, “and while I’ve been to LA a lot, I hadn’t spent any time on the Strip for years and so it all came rushing back – the Sunset Marquis, the Rainbow... I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had gone. I love the West Coast: not the psychedelic Grateful Dead but The Beach Boys, especially the later period. Be warned, though, this isn’t my West Coast record.” That’s as maybe, but from the cover art to the title, and from the title track’s strings, lusciously arranged by Game Of Thrones composer Hannah Peel (and with an ebbing seashore sound effect in the outro), to it’s references to palm trees, the warm breeze and drinks “in the Whiskey” [A-Go-Go] (with an unashamed touch of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord in the intro), it’s as West Coast as Steely Dan’s Hey Nineteen. And that’s no bad thing.

It might be corny to suggest, but the warmth I know, love and, frankly, miss about California - the endless days of sultry sunshine and freshening winds blowing off the Pacific - is present throughout this record. Written and recorded before the lockdown, it nevertheless exudes freedom. The kind of freedom you get from cruising through the Santa Monica Mountains in a vintage '70s Pontiac convertible, as Weller appears to be doing in the album’s artwork. It’s there in the woozy funk of the album’s seven-minute opener Mirror Ball, with its nods to the Isleys' Summer Breeze. It’s there in the wistful thoughts of Old Father Tyme, which presciently - pre-COVID - makes the statement: “In this time of confusion, hang on to what is real. Hail the love around us, see how deep it feels.”

The contemplative frame of mind that Weller has attached to his work of late is patently age related. Though not obvious, the death of his father John - who’d managed his son’s career from the beginning (instilling in him the relentless work ethic) - might still bear presence. Certainly he is not afraid of his past, both in re-signing to Polydor, the label Weller Sr. helped sign The Jam to in 1977, but also in drawing on the organ talents of former fellow Style Councillor Mick Talbot, who appears on Baptiste and Village. Earth Beat, while we’re at it, swings like the Council’s Speak Like A Child, with the giddiness of pristine ’80s pop wrapped in modern sonics. Nor is he afraid of casting out widely into his vast pool of historic reference, calling on Slade’s Jim Lea to provide a rakish violin to Equanimity, one of several Beatley tracks which include the acoustic guitar-driven melancholic beauty, Rockets (featuring some pristine bass work by Andy Crofts).

Picture: Lee Cogswell

Looking back over the last fourteen Weller solo albums, it’s hard to truly find any which waste your time. In fact, looking at the bigger picture, most conform to an unbelievably high standard. He’ll probably hate this, but I don’t think Paul Weller ever gets enough credit. Some, lazily, still think of him as the angry young man, of Red Wedge, of Town Called Malice or ‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street. Others go to the Paris Match posing of The Style Council. All of which were a long Weller time ago. “You’ve got to keep your tools sharp,” he told GQ. “The world is full of people who made great records and then tailed off, but maybe I care more now because I wasn’t as good as they were when I started. With me it’s probably worked in reverse, but there are still some great performers who are doing great work. The things Robert Plant has been doing have been really, really good; I’ve seen Macca and The Stones play live recently and both were absolutely brilliant.”

Frankly, he should be held in the same reverence. It might be tempting to think that On Sunset points to a career winding down, but with Album 16 already on the sketch pad, Paul Weller is showing no signs of his 28-year purple patch ending any time soon. Even if, for me, On Sunset is an absolute career high. Maybe, even his best to date.