When I was about 17 I "discovered" Paul Weller. That's not to say I walked into a pub in Woking and saw The Jam in their infancy; I was introduced to the Modfather (I promise that'll be the only use of the word Modfather) by a friend whose Dad had a better taste in music than mine. I spent a hell a lot of my time saving up my hard earned to pick up as much Weller I as I could. Jam, Style Council, and solo stuff, I loved it all -- well, some of The Style Council. However, on the release of Heliocentric back in 2000 I started to get, well, bored. That snappy, angry, inventive Paul Weller that I'd come to admire had been replaced by some sort of middle-of-the-road doppelgänger. As I lost interest, Weller's output largely passed me, but now, ten years on from Heliocentric, Weller is back with his tenth studio album Wake Up the Nation, which promises to be more urgent and feature more Bruce Foxton than before. Ten years since I "enjoyed" Weller? His tenth studio album? I saw these as signs to try and rekindle my love of the Modfather (I couldn't help myself).As you'd expect from its title, this is an album of mostly snappy, urgent tracks. Paul Weller has downed his acoustic guitar and any temptation to create seven minute opuses and penned 16 tracks which, when sat together on a record, don't even break the 40 minute mark. We have to sit though eight tracks in until we reach a something that breaks into a third minute, with only a single effort that makes it into the fourth. So, "urgent" then. That said, even with a bass credit going to Bruce Foxton on two tracks, expectant fans shouldn't expect a return to The Jam days.The over-arching sound of Wake Up The Nation is one which pays a large debt to the more psychedelic leanings of the 60s. On 'Andromeda' Weller ponders "Tiny tiny shades of light, come dancing through my window" as the track swirls and drones with Harrison-esque scratchy guitar lines. 'She Speaks' is all backwards guitars, off-kilter piano and repetative bass. Even 'Find The Torch, Burn The Plans', perhaps the records most radio-friendly and certain arms-in-the-air anthemic live favourite, is given a gloss of wildly played mellotron.With a title like Wake Up The Nationand Weller's history for not beating around the bush when it comes to his political opinion - you'd expect the theme of this album to touch on our increasingly abject nation, the apathy of the masses, an album born from the hangover of a recession. Weller himself has described this album as "political with a lower-case P". Your opinion of its lyrical intent can be summed up on your reaction to one single lyric: "Get your face out of Facebook and turn off your phone, the death of the postbox, nowhere feels home." I'm sure some will hear that and thinkWeller is some sort of social commentary genius. Others will think it's laughably bad. Consider me in the latter category. Futher into the album, on lead single '7&3 is the Strikers Name' Weller spits "Those fuckers in their castles they're all bastards." By this point I'm past caring.The rest of the dozen or so tracks yet to be mentioned play out largely in the same fashion as each other. 'Moonshine', 'Wake Up The Nation', 'Fast Car / Slow Traffic' and a brace of others all try to keep it up-beat and urgent. Whilst there is no denying that, the result is a collection of tracks that become largely forgettable. At times it comes across as just a collection of ideas. On 'Trees' Weller has even managed cram five different ideas into one song, which would be fine if it were double its four minute running time. Elsewhere on the album there are two instrumental outings, the French New Wave of 'In Amsterdam' and more psychedelic sounds on 'Whatever Next'. And of course it wouldn't be a Paul Weller album without a little soul, this time it comes in the shape of the "I'm thinking of You" aping 'Aim High'.Paul Weller can be commended that, ten solo albums into his career, he's still doing his own thing. He's not chasing a scene, trying to ape his successful contemporaries or reinventing himself. Weller's too far into his career to worry about the need for new fans and it's hard to imagine that Wake Up The Nation is going to bring in any new listeners. What it will do is keep existing fans more than happy and keep existing haters hating. Will it renew the faith of an disillusioned Weller fan of old? Although it's admittedly a step in the right direction I'm far from excited.