Album: Paul Weller

Illumination, Independiente

Having failed to shed the mantle of Britpop's dad-rock godfather, Paul Weller abandons any last pretence of musical forward-thinking on Illumination, inviting the dullest of the dull – Noel Gallagher, Gem Archer, a couple of Ocean Colour Scenesters, and Kelly Jones – into the studio to plonk around a bit on half-formed song ideas, and then releasing the tracks with hardly any polishing. The result may well be the worst album released by a major recording artist this century. To be fair, it's not really the fault of his collaborators, as on most tracks Weller plays most of the instruments himself, also ill-advisedly shouldering – make that shirking – production duties, too. There being nobody around to tell him that things aren't up to scratch, songs such as "Going Places" and "Who Brings Joy" are left clutching at amorphous, half-formed melodies that simply don't pass muster, while the flaccid acoustic guitars, piano, mellotron and flute favoured by Weller on several tracks just add to the album's vague, blurry manner. Even the actual performances – usually such a point of pride in dad-rock – are shoddy at times, with some shockingly bum notes in the vocal of "One X One", and ghastly wordless caterwauling on the title track. The songs are pretty dismal too, whether Weller's hymning his daughter ("Who Brings Joy"), unconvincingly searching for his pastoral soul ("Leafy Mysteries"), or offering patronising guff about religious hatred ("All Good Books") and dossers ("Bag Man"). The sole saving grace is the feisty soul boogie "A Bullet for Everyone", his most effective political outing in years. Otherwise, Illumination is tosh.