Two years after Paul McCartney created his greatest late period career album Chaos and the Creation in the Backyard, the former Beatle has thrown a major curveball to the music industry. Longtime label home Capitol records has been shown the door (maybe Heather Mills can console them) and now hot new young thing Hear Music label which is run by Starbucks (yes, that Starbucks) is now Macca's new home. First album up to bat for Sir Paul's new digs is Memory Almost Full, an album that was actually in the works before Chaos, but was shelved because McCartney was at a loss on what to do with it. Now that the decaffienated and reflective Chaos has been taken care of, this more polished and jumpy work is finally ready for the masses.

After just a few listens of Memory Almost Full, it's clear to see why McCartney chose to shelve this record for a while. True, it does have its moments. "Ever Present Past" is one of the finest tracks that Macca has ever written and "Only Mamma Knows" is one of the most rockin, but this is album is just chalk full of filler. Now, I realize that McCartney's post Band on the Run solo career is stuffed with more filler than a Christmas goose, but Memory Almost Full has some of the biggest cheese this side of Ratatouille. With lyrics like "She makes me feel glad, I want her so bad", "See Your Sunshine" sounds like it was co-written with a 5th grader. That goes double for album closer "Nod Your Head" which is a clinic in trite lyrics to say the least ("nod it up, nod it down, side to side, all around" Puh-lease! What a bunch of crap.) Producer Dave Kahne who fell flat on his face with The Strokes last record has to take a little of the blame here for not pushing McCartney to his paternal potential like Nigel Godrich did for Paul on Chaos. But c'mon, someone who's been around as long as Macca should know that half of these songs are about as memorable as shepherd's pie. Memory Almost Full does have its fair share of tunes that are worthy of Sir Pablo, but I don't think it will be remembered as one of McCartney's more inspired song cycles.

Here's hoping Paul realizes that memory is a cheap commodity in this computer age.