Paul Weller - Saturn’s Pattern

Paul Weller’s twelfth studio effort sees the Modfather come out fighting with a strong nine track album that dabbles in bluesy guitar and space-age synth, which overall sees Weller writing, producing and confidently delivering some catchy, feel-good songs.

Settling on a space theme, ‘Saturn’s Pattern’ starts strong with a belter of a number in ‘White Sky’. This fully fledged blues rock number, puts Weller’s vocals to good use, adding a cosmic edge to the wailing electric guitar which is slightly akin to Black Keys tracks such as ‘I Got Mine’.

‘Pick It Up’ is one of the stronger tracks from ‘Saturn’s Pattern’. Blending a nice steady rhythm with electric piano and guitar added to layers of Weller’s vocals. Along with ‘Pick It Up’, ‘In The Car’ is also an intriguing addition to the album, an extraterrestrial mix of blues guitar, piano and distorted vocals.

Promoting ‘Saturn’s Pattern’ as a “defiantly 21st Century” record, you can see Weller’s enjoyment in having created something that’s quite different from anything else that he’s produced before. Cleverly sticking to a shorter track listing also means that you don’t really have time to get bored or weirded-out by this sonic experiment.

While the celestial sound-effects sometimes make ‘Saturn’s Pattern’ sound like the soundtrack to Lost In Space or a retro computer game, generally what you can clearly hear is that Weller is creating music confidently again.