Named after the area in suburban London where he grew up, Stanley Road is possibly the most autobiographical record Paul Weller has ever made. He doesn't need to sing, "I started a punk band named the Jam, broke it up to play R&B pop with the Style Council and am now on my third solo album." Thankfully, Weller confesses emotional states rather than nitty-gritty details: "The Changingman" perfectly evokes the feeling of being unmoored so that anyone who has navigated wrenching life transitions can relate.

At the still-tender age of 37, Weller is one of England's most revered pop figures. Stanley Road is a singer/songwriter album recorded live in the studio, and it seems powered by the painful self-consciousness of a person whose exterior bid for success rubs against his interior battle to meet his own moral standards. "My fortune cookie cracked up in my hand," Weller sings on "Porcelain Gods." His voice embarks on a wavering search for tenderness amid the power surge of rock, and it comes out sounding a lot like early Bowie. From the Jam's "Burning Sky" to the Style Council's "The Whole Point of No Return," Weller's best songs have always been anthems and ballads of the proletariat. And as someone once said, a working-class hero is something to be.

Of course, the grand, almost symphonic ambition of Stanley Road is scarcely a display of newfound modesty. Ever urgent in his mission to mine soul music for soulfulness, Weller takes his musical bombast to Springsteenian levels at points. And his attempt to return to populist roots sinks well below Springsteenian levels of banality, like the song about a "Woodcutter's Son." "Cutting down wood for the good of everyone" – please!

Yet Weller's crack session band – drummer Steve White, guitarist Steve Cradock and a roster of bassists – injects actual democratic camaraderie into the proceedings, laying down some admirably funky grooves. And as the heartfelt participation of Steve Winwood, Carleen Anderson, Marco Nelson (of Young Disciples) and Oasis' Noel Gallagher makes clear, Weller's work supplies the connecting link between several generations of British rock and soul. (RS 712/713)

EVELYN MCDONNELL