Paul Weller
★★★
An Orchestrated Songbook
POLYDOR. CD/DL/LP
All Mod Conservatoire? Jam, Style Council and solo songs crash the concert hall.
Weller is no stranger to the string section: recent albums have featured judicious orchestrations by the excellent Hannah Peel, and Peel conducted a sizeable classical group behind Weller and band at the Royal Festival Hall in October 2018, a concert released as Other Aspects in 2019. But here he’s all in, a full-fat BBC Symphony Orchestra backing this livecast May ’21 Barbican show, with arrangements by Jules Buckley. Results are mostly great – the Jam’s English Rose is beautifully Vaughan Williamsy; Confessions Of A Pop Group gem It’s A Very Deep Sea is reimagined and reinvigorated – but there are moments where the charts could bear being much edgier, and the guest spots are variable: Celeste understated on an epically pastoral Wild Wood; James Morrison quite the opposite on Stanley
Road’s Broken Stones. In the midst of it, Weller himself sails regally on, in fine-grained voice, and the songs are, happily, bomb(ast)-proof.