Saturn's Pattern

Lyricist: Paul Weller.Audio Mixer: Jan "Stan" Kybert.Recording information: Black Barn, England.Photographers: Dan Massie; Julian Broad; Lawrence Watson.Parting ways with Simon Dine, the chief collaborator on every one of the records in his great new millennial revival, Paul Weller settles into a celestial groove on Saturn's Pattern. Aligning himself with Jan "Stan" Kybert, a producer who has been in his orbit since 2002's Illumination, Weller veers left from the bright modernism of 2012's Sonik Kicks, choosing to soften his edges and expand his horizons. As the album comes crashing into view via the heavy blooze of "White Skies" -- a collaboration with neo-psychedelic pranksters Amorphous Androgynous that seems closer to Black Keys than Humble Pie and not all that trippy, either -- it doesn't seem that Saturn's Pattern would get quite so mellow, but it doesn't take long before Weller happily lets himself drift away in a haze. So spacy is Saturn's Pattern that when it circles back towa