(Yep Roc)

www.yeproc.com

Paul Weller’s been genre-hopping throughout his long career, starting with his homages to early Kinks, Who and Motown in the Jam and to Curtis Mayfield and Gamble-Huff in the Style Council. At his best, he either nails a style with uncanny verve or melds it with his own mod punk roots (which were themselves derivative). This sounds more negative than it is: Weller’s written more great songs than most of his fellow 50-year-old punk survivors, even when he was being dismissed as “Dad Rock” in the nineties. But his tendency until now has been to devote a band or an album to one of his ever-changing moods and explore it deeply.

22 Dreams sprawls, its 21 tracks (he saved one dream for himself) touching on the expected—soul jams, mod rockers, bittersweet ballads—and the surprising—a tribute to Alice Coltrane, a spoken word piece about God, a bit of Krautrock. He plays peacemaker in the great Britpop war between Oasis and Blur, two of his musical descendants, by collaborating with Noel Gallagher to write one song and by bringing in Graham Coxon to play on another.

Working mainly with guitarist Steve Craddock and multi-instrumentalist Simon Dine (of Noonday Underground), Weller is much more introspective than on 2005’s harder rocking As Is Now: he’s become fonder of piano ballads. Some songs sound under-developed: “Black River” and “Why Walk When You Can Run” rely too heavily on repetitive choruses that aren’t all that interesting. But it’s exciting to hear Weller stretching himself and hitting marks old and new.

Standout Tracks: “Echoes Round the Sun,” “Empty Ring” STEVE KLINGE