Paul Weller - Fat Pop (Volume 1)

The Guardian 0

(Polydor)
Recorded largely during last year’s first lockdown, Weller’s 16th solo album is a reined in affair

Anybody thinking that 2018’s relatively trad True Meanings marked the end of Paul Weller’s decade of untamed experimentation would have reckoned without last year’s On Sunset, which once again offered up curveballs aplenty. Fat Pop (Volume 1) – put together largely during lockdown last spring after his tour was postponed, and completed at his Surrey studio when the lifting of restrictions allowed his regular band to reconvene – finds Weller once again reining in some of his unpredictability on an album that’s ultimately more earnest than exciting.

Related: Paul Weller: ‘Music means more to me since I’ve been sober’