As Is Now (2005)

There's a really good mini-movie about this period and album with interviews with Paul and the two Steve's. Paul had hit a bit of a writing block, so he recorded an album of covers, Studio 150, and then came back with this fantastic album. "From The Floorboards Up" is the perfect single he hadn't really produced since "Changingman", and not for lack of trying. I love Paul's introspective songs, but an album needs a single.

I believe this is the last album to primarily feature Steve White on drums, and although this is a solo album, featuring Paul on the cover, it feels like a cohesive band playing, from beginning to end. This really feels like a Style Council album, if you ask me; it doesn't break new ground, per se, but it finishes what he started with "Long Hot Summer" with "Roll Along Summer". Lots of good songs here, and I have added "Savages", "Floorboards Up" and "Come On/Let's Go" to my playlist.

Studio 150 (2004)

Pure blue-eyed northern soul. Beyond the Nolan Porter cover of "If I Could Only Be Sure", this is just all of Paul's influences, prominently worn on his sleeve. There's a live recording. It's really good.

Favourite track? I'm a sucker for Gordon Lightfoot, so "Early Morning Rain" works for me, but the Sister Sledge cover is also great.

Illumination (2002)

There is an instrumental at the end of the first side of Illumination called "Spring (At Last)", which is everything I want from Paul Weller, honestly, and after that, the second side really got to me. His voice, at it's best, is inspirational. I guess I gave this little thought until hearing it with no words, just a kind of chant, in "Spring (At Last)". This is by no means a gospel album, but like a lot of Wild Wood, there is a sentiment here that we should find ways to get out of our secluded anonymous city lives and find a new place and a new day where we can share our hopes and dreams, and it's quite beautiful.

So dance little dancer
Like you've never danced before
It's just a moment
We're going through
This is the new dance that we do
So sing little brother
And turn on everyone
Lift our spirits high
To a place we need to find

Overall, I feel like this album deserves a few more listens. "Push Button, Automatic" could just be the best song the Kinks never recorded. I love it. Speaking of brothers, I didn't realize that Steve White, Weller's drummer for all of these albums, is the older brother of Alan White, who was playing drums in Oasis, which probably explains why Noel Gallagher keeps showing up on Paul's solo albums.

Heliocentric (2000)

There is no drinking. After you're dead.

Abso-bloody-brilliant.

I had not previously listened to Heliocentric, and I have just loved every minute of it. It's frenetic and biting, and politely angry in a way that I had missed since Paul Weller's early days with the Jam. Songs like "Picking Up Sticks" come off like a cross between "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and some besotted Tom Waits boogaloo. I've listened to a lot of Paul Weller recordings up to this point, and I don't think I've enjoyed one this much since Setting Sons. The sound here is very raw in places, and in other places it's just plain weird. The drums are simply astonishingly good, and the whole band is shining. In many places, this reminds me of Curtis Mayfield's band, or even a band like Stereolab. This may not be Wild Wood, but it is impressively dense.

Naturally, this is one of his albums which is often panned.

Heavy Soul (1997)

I've got nothing. I've got a picture.

Honestly, I'll come back to this, leave it as a placeholder... but I listened to Heavy Soul and it left me with very little. Perhaps I was distracted. The things I wanted more of in Paul's first couple albums, songs that have more room to breathe and longer jam sessions, well, Stanley Road delivered on those and I loved it, and Heavy Soul brings them as well, and maybe now it's too much breathing room. I'll come back to this after Heliocentric. Anyway, this wraps up the 90s and the brit-pop era.