Whatever post-Beatles changes his life has undergone, Paul McCartney still favours the modus operandi of “a good little rock'n'roll band”. Seize on an idea, record it fast, then go on to the next one. Hence, 40 years ago, when the Beatles were starting to implode, it was McCartney who instigated the Get Back project. Recording the Run Devil Run covers album after Linda's death, he assembled some chums with the brief of laying down two tunes a day. In a week, the record was done.

So, in the wake of his divorce from Heather Mills, it's perhaps no surprise that Macca imposed a similarly strict schedule upon himself. For the third of his get-togethers with the producer Youth, the two set themselves a target of a song a day. With a purgative burst of harmonica and hoarse blues wailing, Nothing too Much Out of Sight tells you that Electric Arguments bears no resemblance to the noodlesome electronica of the pair's previous collaborations. Indeed, there are gems here, seemingly recorded in such a blur, that you wonder if their creator stopped to wonder how they ranked in his overall canon. And, in the case of the acoustic brushstrokes of Two Magpies and the ivory-hammering pop of Highway, the answer is quite high.

Just past the halfway point, on the euphoric Dance 'Til We're High, McCartney declaims: “Let's light up the sky.” And given what follows, you wonder what else they might have been lighting up. There's no mistaking the full-moon fever that takes hold of Electric Arguments during its final stretch, in particular the pulsing Universal Here, Everlasting Now and Is This Love?

Impressive as it all sounds on paper, of course, none of it would matter if McCartney had delivered an album that, in its eagerness to impress, forgot the tunes. But tunes have never been McCartney's problem so much as his tendency to equate success with mainstream appeal and the sales that come with it. Happily, Electric Arguments is delivered with a disregard for production values or playlist potential that would make, say, Keane or the Kooks blush at their own conservatism. If he hadn't already been knighted, that would be enough to knight him all over again.

(MPL, TS £13.99)

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