[With] Setting Sons, Weller seems to have come into his own.

Because it ultimately refers to class conflict, all English rock & roll is in a sense political—you almost can't avoid it, maybe because the island is just too goddamn small to let you ignore anything. Indeed, throughout Setting Sons, the world and history are closing in. The compositions here mesh and collide to create a dark, tightly packed, peculiarly British landscape of desolation. Memories of Empire clash with Welfare State shoddiness, while the vagaries of the caste system lock in dubious battle with a frustrated proletarian violence that's no longer revolutionary but simply a way of staving off boredom. In the street-fighting "Saturdays Kids," Weller interrupts his "Hate the system" chant to ask in bewilderment, "What's the system?," before jumping headlong back into the fray. "Burning Sky," the LP's urgent, tensely beautiful opener, uses rattling drums and...