release date: Sep. 6, 1993
format: 2 cd (2007 remaster Deluxe Edition)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]
producer: Paul Weller, Brendan Lynch
label: Island / Universal - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Sunflower" (4 / 5) - 2. "Can You Heal Us (Holy Man)" - 3. "Wild Wood" - 6. "Has My Fire Really Gone Out?" - 7. "Country" - 10. "The Weaver" - 12. "Foot of the Mountain" - 16. "Hung Up"
2nd studio album by Paul Weller originally released on Go! Discs shows us a matured musician. The album is reissued in 2007 in a remastered 2-disc Deluxe Edition with Disc One: "Original Album & B-Sides" (22 tracks) and Disc Two: "Bonus Tracks - Demo Versions" (21 tracks) and a total of 43 tracks. The original album contains 15 compositions.
His heydays with The Jam, his transition period with The Style Council linger in the shadows of this. His first solo album was a mixed bag of all sorts, still with much pop soul and sophisti-pop, which basically seemed like yet another collection of songs that were intended to be issued with The Style Council, but here he comes out very strongly and primarily as a contemporary singer / songwriter building on folk rock, pop soul, influenced by r&b roots.
This is more than just fine. The album is (the only by Weller to be) enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Here Before You Die", and in 1994 it was nominated the British award, The Mercury Prize (alongside e.g. The Prodigy, Blur, and Pulp), which eventually was handed to M People for Elegant Slumming.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5, Uncut Magazine 5 / 5 stars ]
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5, Uncut Magazine 5 / 5 stars ]
