Wild Wood (Island) 1993
We have never been big fans of Paul Weller, the Jam were sort of OK and the Style council were quite frankly boring, but with his first solo album he quite simply blew us away. Soulful, mellow, thoughtful, bluesy, jazzy and intricate. With this album the Modfather finally came of age, mature sounds that can only come from someone who has nothing to prove and all the time in the world to sit in the studio and bang out numbers he likes, not just fodder for the hit machine. Laid back numbers like the title track ‘Wild Wood’, ‘Moon on Your Pyjamas’ and foot of the mountain show off his skill and craftsmanship of an acoustic cabinet maker, while tracks like ‘Shadow of the Sun’ and ‘Sunflower’ prove he can still wield a chainsaw when necessary. Not the sort of stuff we usually listen to here, but when we fancy a bit of class, this always gets consideration.

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