THE GIFT is The Jam´s ball of confusion. Though its purpose is laudable it´s undermined by a failure to balance questions of style ... What this record misses most is the cohesion and coherence of its predecessors ... The tensions on which their records fed so brilliantly have, on THE GIFT, been pushed into irreconcilable extremes.

It´s an LP riven by frustration ... The undercurrents that before were held together are now falling apart. Weller wants to be optimistic, but not escapist; he distrusts politics, but is drawn to political affairs (and can find little reason there to be optimistic); he seems tired of the old-style Jam music, rooted in ´60s pop and soul, but knows of no better alternative, so ends up dabbling ... Stranger still comes on ´Trans-Global Express´.

Lyrically this is the most radical statement The Jam have made, and its importance is emphasised on the inner sleeve. I suspect it´s less a conversion to Marx than and update of the Shelley poem which appeared on the SOUND AFFECTS sleeve, but it´s all right-on stuff. How weird then that the lyrics are mixed so low they are practically inaudible, that what sounds like a potentially great Jam song is drowned in an excess of production tricks, electronic noises and jerky vocal bits. Coyness? Failure of nerve? I can´t even guess ... It´s curious how Weller´s political ideas, just like his music, can be traced back to the ´60s ...

Sadly the complexities and rich social detail that went into ALL MOD CONS and SETTING SONS have largely been ditched in favour of such abstract simplifications ... The one exception on this, and to all my criticism ... is ´Town Called Malice´ a magnificent howl of outrage at Thatcherite Britain ...

I like ´Precious´ for Weller´s great singing, though it drags when it tries to become a funk workout. (Stay with soul, Paul) ...

The LP has a looser feel than previous Jam albums ... The Jam have tried too hard to do too much without really having any stronger foundations than their own desperate desire to ´keep movin´´. It´s not enough, but I guess it shows they still care and for that, at least, I´m grateful.