After hitting a critical high note and scoring a Grammy for Best Male Vocal with 2005's plaintive but pleasant and surprisingly Beatle-y 'Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard', Paul returned in 2007 with 'Memory Almost Full'. Its strength resides in McCartney's ability to sound familiar and faithful to his past without sounding tropey, unlike other artists who emulate the Beatles sound; Paul sounds like he's just at his best.
McCartney stomps and strums us into the collection with a mandolin on 'Dance Tonight'. He wrote this tune not knowing how to play the instrument and it shows in some of oddly cheery chords as he sings 'you can come over my place if you want to, you can do anything you want to do'; very much in the spirit of 'All Together Now' from the Yellow Submarine album.
From there, through all its dynamics this album never loses steam. The music is at once current - particularly in its dilated 21st Century pop production - and unabashedly retro. It doesn't feel like McCartney's previous few albums where either the Beatle sound was more being chased than achieved (Flaming Pie, Driving Rain) or his own less corked solo sound more grafted with than lifted by decade specific production (80's McCartney). MAF is a quality listen because the rich instrumentation and production intertwine with the Paul's composition. The believable and compelling vocal delivery on 'Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard' endures throug MAF’s variety of moods and textures. This makes sense since songs for both albums were composed around the same period. For the first time in recent memory, more songs than not feel like legitimate classics that can stand the test of time and genuinely gratify fans hungry for new Beatles quality music. From breezy acoustic pieces like 'Feet In the Clouds' to Little Richard channeling rockers like 'That Was Me' and 'Nod Your Head' to cheery experiments like 'Vintage Clothes', to the stormy slow-mo dreamscapes of 'House of Wax', from pop reminiscence in 'Ever Present Past' and to shuffling, novella piano grooves in 'Mr. Bellamy', 'Memory Almost Full' unloads enough to make new memories while revelling in old ones. My personal favorite on this album is 'Gratitude' for its deceptively straight 6/8 timing and strikingly youthful 'Helter Skelter' style vocal. The lyric sounds like a loving thank you note until it reaches the refrain in which McCartney sings 'I should stop loving you/ Think what you put me through/But I don't want to lock my heart away' which puts a whole different, perhaps bitter spin on the rest of the song.
With all this and more, including Paul's first song medley since The Beatles 'Abbey Road', 'Memory Almost Full' leaves little to criticize; it's at once everything an old fan would want and a new listener could be enticed by. But as a reviewer I'm tasked with balancing my praise with some critical content and in order to do that I can really only pit it against The Beatles work; so the thing missing here is what constitutes the passing of an artist's prime: a classic, freestanding and timeless gem. There's no 'Hey Jude' or 'Here There and Everywhere'. But how often does anyone come close to that? It's a cheap shot because this literally sounds like The Beatles circa 2007 and it's how low I have to stoop to find a blemish on the magic in this essential piece of McCartney solo work; among the few that can sit among The Beatles catalogue.
AMUSED: 85%
ABUSED: 15%
