Two Paul McCartneys are battling for space on The Boys of Dungeon Lane, his sweet-natured and often delightful new album. The first is an unabashed nostalgist, a genteel romantic—the kind of presence you might expect from an eighty-three-year-old entertainer with an impossibly rich backstory and a knack for breezy pop hooks. The other is, thankfully, a wild man—the same spirit that animated everything from the absurdist studio tinkering of “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)” to the clanging folk curiosity “Wild Honey Pie.”
Historically, some of the Beatle’s most exciting solo work has fused these two personalities: Take the 1971 Ram classic “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” a homespun art-pop classic reflecting on a beloved relative—that is, when it isn’t winding through orchestrations and playfully accented vocals and giddy melodies that topple over like dominoes. McCartney strikes that same sweet spot many times on Dungeon Lane, his twentieth-ish solo album. But our weirdo hero feels M.I.A. on the most overtly introspective tunes, which emphasize glancing back over looking forward.
McCartney, of course, has never been shy about mining his bygone years for inspiration—even quite literally, like on 2007’s “Ever Present Past.” But that’s the overarching theme throughout these fourteen tunes, crafted with marquee co-producer Andrew Watts (Elton John, Justin Bieber, Ozzy Osbourne) and largely recorded, as usual, one-man-band style. Some of these memories seem nakedly autobiographical: On the bobbing piano-and-acoustic ballad “Days We Left Behind,” he surveys a youthful, Cavern Club-like atmosphere of “smoky bars and cheap guitars.” Over a ramshackle strum on “Down South,” he nods back to formative musical memories with his old bandmates (“The morning bus was where we two would meet / I sat beside you on an empty seat / We’d talk about guitars and rock and roll / They were the subjects that would never grow old”). The most overt example is “Home to Us,” a Ringo Starr duet that describes a scrappy but heartening childhood: “The roses in the yard began to wilt and then they turned to dust,” he sings, “But it was home to us.” All of these sentiments are lovely, of course, but the music doesn’t always match their emotion, lacking the melodic or stylistic wonder of top-tier Macca.
But that more ambitious version of McCartney pops up all over the record. Opener “As You Lie There” is both wistful and adventurous, simmering on a childhood crush as the lo-fi backdrop shape-shifts through overdriven guitar lines, bluesy bass grooves, and lush vocal harmonies. “Mountain Top” might be his trippiest moment since the Sgt. Pepper era, with psychedelic references (“Any time I walk with you / Magic mushrooms peeping through”), cosmic harpsichord, and wordless-vocal sunshine erupting into a revved-up, reversed guitar solo. On the other end of the spectrum, the woozy minor-key waltz of “Salesman Saint” salutes his parents’ resilience amid the strife of WWII, over a stunning arrangement highlighted by melancholy guitars, clever time changes, and bold big-band brass.
Paul McCartney could have started coasting decades ago. Yet here he is, in his eighties, still experimenting and pushing himself. Not every moment on The Boys of Dungeon Lane captures the electrifying zeal of his best work—but a whole lot of them do, even the nostalgic spots, and it’s hard not to marvel at that idea. [Capitol]
Ryan Reed is a writer and editor from Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to Paste, his work has appeared over the years in Rolling Stone, Revolver, The New York Times, Pitchfork, and many other publications.
