Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 04/06/07
Label: Universal

Imagine going to work every day and knowing that people, friends, colleagues, family - and, in some cases, fans - all wish your work was more like it was 30, 40 years ago. Bowie, Elton, Ozzy, Lou, Sting, Mick and Keith - they all know that pressure when they make a new record these days. They all know when they next play live they'll be lucky to get away with a couple of new songs being politely applauded, while the fans go gaga over that old familiar intro of a song from way back.

Along with The Stones, Paul McCartney knows this better than most, and yet here's "Memory Almost Full", soon to be re-titled "pockets half empty" in the divorce courts. With The Beatles and, now rightly heralded, Wings back catalogue finally flying off the digital shelves, this new album could easily disappear, but Macca is out and about, talking to anyone and everyone, reminiscing just enough about The Fab Four to keep it interesting and guarantee air-time. He's even done a deal with Starbucks to get the record played and sold with a skinny Latte.

"Memory Almost Full" obviously matters to him - even if his admission that he shelved it once back in 2003 adds a hint of caution - and it's certainly a big, bold record full of strident guitars, rock'n'roll singing, sweeping strings, thumping drums and bright as you like piano vamps. The excellent "Only Mama Knows" betrays more than a hint of "Live & Let Die" in its Les Paul-tastic intro and riff, yet lyrically, Sir Paul is in reflective, even morbid, mood here. This is an older man's record with just a hint of hair dye at the temple, stretching from the memory lane of "That Was Me" to the remarkable, funeral ballad of "The End Of The End", written for McCartney's own demise.

Not for the first time, his finest moment is to be found in a ballad - once more looking back at his life on "You Tell Me". Again it owes much to "Band On The Run" era Wings with its big acoustic guitar and harmony vocals. This isn't a subtle record. Where once Macca seduced us with great melodies, simple songs and great musicians, here the musical sledgehammer is on show too often. Take the closing "Nod Your Head", for example - a mind boggling combination of the Jesus & Mary Chain's "Upside Down" and Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". "The Long And Winding Road" it ain't.

It's almost as if McCartney is throwing everything into the mix for one, final, bombastic hurrah. With his 65th birthday just days away and much of the lyrical content here concerned with the past and with tidying up loose ends, maybe Sir Paul is finally tiring of the studio, the tour bus and the ever present thumbs up. If so, "Memory Almost Full" may prove to be a more important album than it sounds right now.

    by Andy Strickland