Albums of the week: Paul Weller, David Guetta, Jungle and Pale Waves

Paul weller - True Meanings

(Parlophone)

****

Ever the changing man, Paul Weller approaches his seventh decade with his muse still as restless and hungry as ever. Since he ripped up the rule book and replenished his band for 22 Dreams (2008), the one-time Jam and Style Council singer has been throwing all his disparate influences into each album, but True Meanings finds him both more focused and more introspective. Opener, The Soul Searchers, written in collaboration with Conor O’Brien of Villagers, allies the bosky textures of Wild Wood to a lightly funky rolling beat. It’s bucolic rock in the Astral Weeks or Liege and Leaf territory, loose enough for a couple of Hammond organ solos, with lyrics that don’t exactly go anywhere but do so amiably: “Head down, let the current take you the long way,” he counsels.

The tone is set for a lush, leathery, questing sort of album of shuffling ballads, dulcet waltzes and chord changes that catch at the back of the throat. Weller’s voice has aged rather well, capable of the hushed, mannered tones he uses on What Would He Say to the soulful rasp of Mayfly to the enigmatic David Bowie impression he sidles out on Bowie (also the name of Weller’s own son). It doesn’t all hit the mark: the George Harrison with sitars impression on Books comes across a little over-earnest, and Come Along is a little icky: “I just wanna take you home and let nature do the rest… Wonder what’s going on beneath that dress”. Stop! But it’s an album that earns its longueurs - and one that makes you quite happy it’s autumn again.

Richard Godwin

Jungle - For Ever

(XL Recordings)

****

Jungle’s 2014 debut was an exotically soulful stew that belied its origins in a studio bunker in Shepherd’s Bush. Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland had a winning way with falsetto and funk, though the anonymous duo really made an impression when the recording project swelled into an irrepressible seven-piece touring band. Apparently the pair struggled for a while over this follow-up until alighting on the obvious solution: a bolstered disco sound closer to their concert experience. Smile, Happy Man and Heavy, California are all destined to be live anthems. Alongside these supercharged tunes, there are signs of songwriting progression with the affecting heartbreak of House in LA and glacial groove of Cosurmyne. Jungle’s Alexandra Palace show in February should be quite a party.

Andre Paine

David guetta​ - 7

(Parlophone)

***

On his seventh album David Guetta is broadening his sonic scope in an apparent attempt to take over the top 40 completely. The 50-year-old French DJ ticks as many boxes as a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation across an epic 27 tracks, which include hip-twisting reggaeton on Goodbye, strident hip hop on Motto, overwrought Europop on Battle and 12 underground house tracks that he made under an alias – Jack Back. What it lacks in subtlety it makes up for with a catchiness that is hard to resist, from the steady groove of Flames to the chipmunk-voiced dance pop of Like I Do. A starry guestlist that includes Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber and Stefflon Don completes the impression that this is a Hollywood blockbuster, built for popcorn chomping, not to last.

David Smyth

Pale waves - My Mind Makes Noises

(Dirty Hit)

****

Manchester goth-pop quartet Pale Waves might look as angsty as The Bad Seeds, but their sound feels anything but. Fronted by best friends Heather Baron-Gracie and Ciara Doran – both of whom met as students in Manchester – their future pop sound is light and breezy with only a hint of the emosh-pop anguish their look suggests. Sitting somewhere between the soundtrack of Stranger Things and the Black Mirror episode San Junipero, their debut album is laden with synths and Eighties kitsch. The infectious Television Romance is pure Eighties pop indulgence, as is There’s a Honey. Co-produced in part by Matty Healy of the 1975, the influence of their Manchester counterparts and label-mates is unmistakable. Yet where the songs are tinged with a greater gothic melancholy, such as Loveless Girl and Black, the band feel at their most individual and interesting. This is an accomplished debut with the promise of more to come.

Elizabeth Aubrey

Dur-dur band - Somalia

(Analog Africa)

****

Here’s a pretty extraordinary Somalian disc from Analog Africa. Dur-Dur band were the hottest sound in Mogadishu in the 1980s, which was a vibrant musical hub before the civil war of the 1990s. Here are the band’s first two albums, plus two unreleased tracks, assembled on two CDs or three LPs. The sound will appeal to lovers of Ethiopian music with sax-heavy horn sections and funky electric organ. The band had three vocalists, the female singer Sahra Dawo, and two male vocalists, Shimaali and Baastow (nicknamed after pasta due to the spaghetti-like shape of his body!). So often with these crate-digging projects, the bands have long disappeared, but remarkably the Dur-Dur band are at Redon, E2, tomorrow night.

Simon Broughton

Lokkhi terra meets dele sosimi - Cubafrobeat

(Funkiwala)

****

There’s a wealth of homegrown jazz-fusion on London’s Funkiwala label, but this coming together feels particularly inspired. Lokkhi Terra is the seasoned Bangladeshi-British-Cuban group whose funky polyrhythms and freewheeling aesthetic invites genre melding. Dele Sosimi is the former Fela Kuti keyboardist whose chugging Afrobeat, itself a hybrid music, makes for some compelling musical conversations here. Four tracks at a Fela-tastic 10 minutes each see grooves swaying between styles: opener Afro Sambroso starts with the drums-and-voice of Cuban rumba before linking with Kishon Khan’s Afrobeatified keys and featuring eloquent horn improvs along the way. A more-is-more lineup explores themes, delivers surprises, the interplay between Khan and Sosimi a frequent highlight. They play the London Jukebox, N1 on November 9.

Jane Cornwell