Paul McCartney’s new album, the rather cryptically-titled ‘Egypt Station’, is his first album of new material since ‘New’, which was released in 2013.

It was McCartney who put the lid on The Beatles back in 1970, when he released his first solo album. Since that time, he has recorded a further 25 albums of varying degrees of greatness and quality, and has arrived at the unbelievable stage in his life that the man who also wrote ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ is now 76.

Many of the 16 songs on the new album seem to be attempts at rewriting some of his earlier classics. ‘Happy With You,’ for example, gives the listener a direct reminder of ‘Blackbird,’ and even contains that heart-beat-like foot-tapping beat that drove the 50-year-old Beatles hit. 
 
Further reminders of the band McCartney used to be in come thick and fast; ‘People Want Peace’ begins with a throbbing harpsichord beat that reminds us of the mandolin solo in ‘Girl’ from 1965.  

That song was by John Lennon, and McCartney’s attempts to continue to prove he was as good a songwriter don’t stop there – ‘People Want Peace’ inexplicably turns into a drum/handclap accompanied mantra that leaves us in no doubt; Lennon gave McCartney co-writer credit for ‘Give Peace a Chance’ as a favour for playing on ‘The Ballad of John & Yoko’ in 1969, and here McCartney takes full advantage of that privilege.

One hopes that this is not to be McCartney’s final album, in part because some of the songs are too weak to be his epitaph. It is a complete mystery why he selected ‘Back in Brazil,’ a song that sounds like a demo, for the album. It spoils the image one has that McCartney was not only a great songwriter, a great musician, but that he knew what songs to select and in which order. On ‘Egypt Station’, the songs appear to be almost random and of mixed quality.

But, he does save the best for (almost) last. ‘Despite Repeated Warnings’ is a tale of a sea captain who drives his ship deliberately onto rocks, and at seven minutes long, runs the gamut of musical styles from ELO to 10cc to his own former band Wings, as it opens with a piano prologue reminiscent of ‘Live & Let Die’, which he also wrote. As the song builds, more instruments are added, before the tempo shifts to the ELO-like middle section. Shades of ‘A Day in the Life,’ perhaps? But if anyone is entitled to take from The Beatles, surely it’s Paul McCartney.

‘Caesar Rock’ is something of a rarity on this album. Rather than plunder his own musical heritage, he reminds us that he was listening to other music as well. This is a strange track that starts very uncertainly, but soon settles into a groove that could well have been supplied by Blondie.

‘I Don’t Know’ is another of the album’s highlights. It is the first song proper on the album, and its piano introduction is beautiful. The lyrics ask us ‘What am I doing wrong?’ and it appears to be a strange place to start an album.

Paul McCartney is a musician through and through. He is probably rock’s greatest bass player, and is pretty handy on guitar, piano and drums (he plays most of the instruments on this album), and his voice, at his peak, was also one of the greatest that rock has ever known.

On ‘Egypt Station’, though, he appears to be holding back, his songs are not his best, and his voice is so reserved it is almost monotonous. And yet his drive to create and release new music is as strong as ever. One is left to scratch one’s head at this dichotomy.

How can someone with such a strong creative instinct produce an album that fails to deliver the songs needed to match that instinct? If this were an album by The Feeling, Spiritualized or Suede, we would probably be lauding it as one of their best. But it isn’t; it’s by Paul McCartney, and, as he said, “I wrote ‘Eleanor Rigby’!”