Rod Stewart, Another Country - album review: You old romantic, Rod

Download: Please; Love Is; Can We Stay Home Tonight?; Walking in the Sunshine

Rod Stewart, rock’s great lothario (Getty Images)

There’s a rollicking charm to Another Country that’s warmly engaging at its best; but of course, it wouldn’t be a Rod Stewart album without a few irritations along the way.

In his favour, there’s a plain-speaking directness about Rod’s songwriting that pays dividends when it comes to matters of the heart. As, for instance, on the opening “Love Is”, where banjo and fiddle create a jaunty, folksy air of celtic flavour while Stewart essays his corny but effective celebration of love: “Love is life, and love is yearning/It does not boast, but speaks the truth”. It’s simple, straight to the point, and its refusal to hide behind metaphor confirms the sincerity of the emotion. Likewise, it’s refreshing not to have any bogus mea culpa about alcoholic behaviour in “The Drinking Song”, an unregenerate boozer’s anthem celebrating former drunken exploits with no apology.

But there’s a point about midway through the album, following the folk-rock football anthem “We Can Win”, that Stewart’s plain-speaking charm slips into queasy patriotism with “Another Country” and “Way Back Home”. The former, a rousing evocation of a squaddie’s yearning for his wife and unborn child back in Blighty, leaves few musical clichés unturned, from bugle to bagpipes (or some skirling approximation thereof).

It’s cheesy, albeit well-intentioned; but “Way Back Home” is irredeemably naff, full of pompous blather about “a nation with its back against the wall” and “that good old-fashioned British way, with a proud and thoughtless grace” – fine sentiments indeed, especially from a poolside lounger in Los Angeles. When he even has the gall to end the track with Churchill intoning his “fight them on the beaches” speech, you have to wonder: has ever an entertainer so shamelessly angled for a knighthood? Listen hard, and you can all but hear Elton chortling.

Not that that is actually the worst track on the album. That dubious honour is reserved for “Batman Spiderman Superman”, a glutinous song to Rod’s son that perhaps ought best have been kept in the family. Sentimental songs about celebs’ children are always best avoided on a full stomach; but when, as here, they incorporate name-checking of Hollywood merchandise, the results are truly noxious.

Given its sudden sharp downward turn, it’s hard to unreservedly recommend Another Country. But there are enough decent moments to justify a bit of iTunes cherry-picking, at least. With its winning keyboard melody and uplifting backing vocals, there’s a pleasingly Springsteen-esque, spirit-raising quality to the doughty “Walking in the Sunshine”. “Can We Stay Home Tonight?” and “A Friend for Life” are romantic soulmate songs that sensibly ignore the more transitory adolescent emotional flushes in favour of celebrating mature, long-term monogamous devotion. And “Please” is great, a slab of punchy Muscle Shoals-style funk with a great backbeat slap, punctuated by Stewart’s impressive upper-register squeal of the title.

The track marches along with a brisk, focused assurance, as if plotted and planned for an assault on the American charts, and it confirms that when the chips are down, Rod can still deliver on his core business.