I’m sure he can always turn to his wallet for comfort, but poor old Paul McCartney has been taking it on the chin for decades. The most talented of the men they once called the Fab Four has long been the least fab, at least in fashionable circles, for failing to get himself shot, or for otherwise maintaining a public demeanour of chirpy-winky-thumbs-uppiness that always sat at a slightly nauseating angle to the constitutional honesty of either John Lennon or George Harrison.

McCartney’s obstinate taste for comfy sweaters and cheerfully silly love songs perhaps didn’t help either, but his long and busy back catalogue as an ex-Fabber contains more pure moments of wonder than those of his former comrades, and there’s been a welcome critical thaw in the last few years over some of those lost gems. Not that we’re all required to recognize the ostentatious brilliance wrapped up inside the otherwise tooth-rotting kitsch of “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”—it’s a taste thing, after all. But if you want me to, I will.

Being that Macca was always the most jealous guardian of official Beatles history (watching him marshal the testimony of the other two still-living Beatles in the 1995 doc Anthology can be an uncomfortable experience), I’m sure it’s no accident that the 40th anniversary of the White Album coincides so neatly with the sudden release this Tuesday (Nov. 25) of a new album under his formerly super-secret identity as the Fireman. Absent an explicit statement to that end, let’s just take it that the Cute One is signaling as much with the blazing electric blues that kicks off Electric Arguments. “Nothing Too Much Out of Sight” seems to keep “Helter Skelter,” “Yer Blues,” “Birthday,” and a touch of “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road” very much in it sights, while the rest of the album—which can be streamed here—is loosey-goosey, playful, and occasionally messy in the spirit of both that towering work, and some of Sir Paul’s most beguiling solo moments.

The rest of Electric Arguments is hit and miss, as you’d expect of an album that was written and recorded on a day-to-day basis over two weeks. But in the empirically perfect pop of “Sun Comes Up,” the exertion-free melodiousness of “Two Magpies,” the new-agey waltz “Travelling Light,” the polite Wings-y rock of “Highway,” and especially the yawning great rush of “Sing the Changes,” Electric Arguments. soars. Credit Macca for having the gusto to still let it blurt. In other words, thumbs up.

The Tyee, November 2008