Paul Weller
Illumination

The 'dinosaurs' of music are slowly collapsing to the ground! They do so periodically with every Greatest Hits, with each new album that offers the typical sound that made them incredibly famous, with their big face, deluding itself to resist time, proudly displayed on the cover. Luckily for us, this doesn’t happen to everyone. An artist who escapes this sad musical reality is Sir Paul Weller. Prominent at the end of the '70s with the mod movement and the Jam, capable of re-emerging splendidly in the eighties with the Style Council, and still appreciated today as a solo artist, what Weller has always done is refuse to rest on uncontested fame, reintroducing himself each time with new ideas and his unmistakable style. In 'Illumination', the seventh effort if we also consider the compilation ‘Modern Classics', much of the acoustic atmosphere from the latest 'Days Of Speed' can still be felt, an album that gathered the artist’s greatest hits performed live. There's the usual northern soul 'Going Places' and 'Standing Out In The Universe', precious acoustic ballads 'Leafy Mysterie' and 'Now The Night Is Here', and beautiful more intimate pauses like 'Who Brings Joy'. Confirming the high quality of the work, we find famous mod-father disciples on the album—Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer play on 'One X One', Kelly Jones sings alongside Weller in the robust 'Call Me No.5', which fits the Stereophonics' front-man like a glove, while Steve Cradock, the guitarist of Ocean Colour Scene, enriches the album with his valuable collaboration. Without mega-productions but full of healthy musical passion, here is a work delivered that confirms, if ever there was doubt, that not every music 'dinosaur' is on the path to extinction.