When we thought Paul was worn out, he brings out his best album in years.

Paul McCartney - Chaos And Creation In The Backyard

4 stars


There was nothing at this point that could make anyone foresee a great disc by Macca. Nothing, and so much less his now penultimate studio delivery, that routinary and indolent Driving Rain (2001)to which followed an American tour(Back in the U.S., 2002) where even sir Paul's pristine throat seemed to slacken.

But therupon, our wealthy 63 springs old sir delivers a master stroke out of pure pride,that leaves us overwhelmed almost at a time when we were expecting nothing, and offers his best album in several lustrums.

Maybe producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck) is also to be blamed for that fit of genius, and no doubt we will have to give him great credit for the exquisite sound inertwined of all the album, but without the raw material of the songs everythig else would be all a hoax.

There goes Jenny Wren, with the more adorable acoustic guitars since Blackbird; English Tea and that crepuscular beauty we didn't remember since For no One; the sophisticated and changing Promise To You Girl, that seems as if Got to Get You Into My Life had just made it into side B of the Abbey Road album.

And there's more than revisionism: the dark How Kind Of You or the melodramatic Vanity Fair leaves standing many of those that have been raised as saviours of brit-pop during the last decade.

Let's recognize it: when signing in solitaire or during the Wings years, Paul has taken us in too many times. Now - bless chaos - we would be due to forgive him everything. Absolutely everything.

Watch Out! - Certain Softness includes a Spanish guitar that provides a Latin jazz touch.

-----




McCartney: nostalgic, experimental


When Paul McCartney's mum died, the young musician, with his father and brother, went through a time that he himself describes as of chaos and creation (by those days The Beatles were already being planned), that's the reason the musician has titled his new album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (on sale next 12 September).
Yesterday evening, we listened to the 13 songs of this album, which makes number 20 in Paul's career, and we can tell you it has the Beatles' sound, but as if it were going through a dark and non commercial stage.

The disc is made up of dissimilar songs, but full of nostalgia of those golden years: "Fine Line", "How Kind of You"o "English Tea", where the producer Nigel Godrich (that has worked with groups such as Travis and Radiohead) gives free rein to his admiration for the band, but goes further and inlays dark textures in track such as "At the Mercy", "Jenny Wren" or" Anyway"


It's obvious the use of an orchestra, with its electrical percussion, string instruments accompanying the bass, guitar and piano played by McCartney, who even "tropicalizes" one of its subjects: "Too Much Rain" with some percussions.

As usual, Paul McCartney plays almost every instrument for this album in which he spent four years of his life, and we can say that the result is extraordinary, although that will not stop to the Beatlemaniacs or detractors from saying "that song sounds like one of the Beatles".

We will have time to, calmly, listen to the record because we can assure you that it's non commercial, but in the middle of chaos, there is a great amount of creation and an experimental sound that will not let anybody down.





-----
It is necessary to have the honesty to recognize it: one was expecting anything but this. The new solo album by Paul McCartney, its twentieth since the end of the Sixties and the separation of Beatles, is a monument: a pure wonder.

Out of consideration for his three ex-colleagues (two of which rest, one hopes for it, in peace), one will not write that "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" is the continuation of "White Album" or of "Abbey Road" but one makes a point of affirming without reserve that it follows the path of "McCartney", "RAM" or "Flowers in the Dirt", three of his more prestigious predecessors.

By playing and replaying an exceptional repertory containing songs of The Beatles (and some of Wings) on the scenes of the whole world, Paul McCartney, the reinvigorating in his sixties, decided to raise his level by joining Nigel Godrich. Considered to be extremely demanding, the highly skilled producer (Radiohead, Beck or Air) pushed the most famous songwriter in history of pop even futher, refusing some of his songs and imposing an ascetic production and arrangements in order emphasize the ones chosen.

That is what gives "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" its gloss vintage, although it was rapidly recorded with modern technology. Very much in his own voice, proud of his strong lyrics, McCartney alternates rock'n'roll titles("Line Fine", "Promise To You Girl"), acoustic ("Jenny Wren", "A Certain Softness") and ambitious pieces ("Riding to Vanity Fair", "Anyway"), all of them lightened up by a simple but effective instrumentation for which this one-man band is responsible, as he practically plays all of the instruments.

Just to put things straight, Macca went back to pure songwriting as in the formidable "English Tea" and with "This Never Happened Before" is signing his most beautiful consent-song since... "The Long And Winding Road".

-----


One of them seems to be from the spanish RS. I do not know where the other two come from. Now, this is a so-so translation but at least they're better than those bablefish ones.
[Edited 9/3/05 19:33pm]