''Heliocentric'' is the fifth studio album by

Paul Weller Paul John Weller (born John William Weller; 25 May 1958) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Weller achieved fame with the punk rock/ new wave/mod revival band the Jam (1972–1982). He had further success with the blue-eyed soul m ...

, released in 2000. It peaked at No. 2 on the

UK Albums chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

Production

''Heliocentric'' was produced by Brendan Lynch. Its name was inspired by the Helios desk used in the recording studio. The string arrangements were contributed by

Robert Kirby Robert Kirby (16 April 1948 – 3 October 2009) was a British-born arranger of string sections for rock and folk music. He was best known for his work on the Nick Drake albums, ''Five Leaves Left'' and ''Bryter Layter'', but also worked wi ...

Critical reception

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

'' wrote: "Infuriatingly, relentlessly dull,

he album He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

suggests that Weller is not only dry of opinions and melodies, but disengaged from the very concept of fresh ideas." ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' called the album "a mustering of forces, as if

eller Eller may refer to * Eller (surname) *Düsseldorf-Eller, an urban borough of Düsseldorf, Germany *Ediger-Eller, a community on the Moselle in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany *Eller (Rhume), a river of Thuringia and Lower Saxony, Germany ** Weilroder ...

s suddenly realised that coasting on his reputation as Mr Authentically Gritty won't keep those automatic Brit awards coming in." ''

The New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers ...

'' called it "a solid, often dense, and musicianly collection that in its acoustic-framed songs echoes ''Wildwood''."

Track listing

The original album cover has a printing mistake which shows tracks 4 & 5 in the wrong order. The correct order is shown below. All tracks composed by Paul Weller # "He's the Keeper" # "Frightened" # "Sweet Pea, My Sweet Pea" # "A Whale's Tale" # "Back in the Fire" # "Dust and Rocks" # "There's No Drinking, After You're Dead" # "With Time & Temperance" # "Picking Up Sticks" # "Love-Less"

Personnel

*Paul Weller – vocals, guitar, piano *Cliff Stapleton –

hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a vio ...

Steve Cradock Stephen "Steve" Cradock (born 22 August 1969 in Solihull) is an English guitarist, most notable for playing in the rock group Ocean Colour Scene. Cradock also plays the guitar in Paul Weller's band, having appeared on all of Weller's solo reco ...

– guitar *Dominic Kelly – oboe * Brendan Lynch – keyboards, percussion * Steve White – drums *Damon Minchella – bass *

– string arrangements

References

2000 albums Paul Weller albums Albums arranged by Robert Kirby Island Records albums {{2000-rock-album-stub