After a year and a half in the desert, the three wise men return ... Fresh-faced ´innocents´ may come and go but Paul Weller at 23 is the elder spokesman of British youth ...

The best Jam songs mix an angry kitchen-sink realism with a surging desire for a change ...

On THE GIFT he finally steps off the fence and goes for love in the face of despair, and intelligence in the place of exhaustion ... The musical range of THE GIFT is wider than ever and The Jam´s skills more developed ... The Jam have retained their identity while enlarging it to include ringing brass work and best of all a bubbly happiness ...

Weller´s understanding of dole-queue despair is equalled by his insistence on the value of the secret of the beat ... Weller has no need to be intimidated by the triteness of recent fashions. Yet ... I suspect he fears the problems raised by The Jam´s superiority ...

The major dinosaur tendency on THE GIFT is Weller´s leanings to rather awkward and abstract lyrics ... ´Trans-Global Express´ has Weller on the outside looking in, substituting sweeping statements for The Jam´s usual faith ...

Weller and co keep their integrity by finding glamour no substitute for truth ... Weller´s earnest concern and occasional lyricism finds its perfect counterpart in the springing joy of sixties soul ... Thanks for THE GIFT.