The Boys Of Dungeon Lane

This might be McCartney’s best album of the 21st century. .... There’s a deeply observational quality to his songwriting, especially evident in the most nostalgic numbers here, that makes his eternal cheer feel well earned.

McCartney's gift for hummable pop songcraft endures and more than one of these songs is likely to pop into your head days after listening. Yet, it's all those little moments on The Boys of Dungeon Lane and the way McCartney brings his past to life that makes the album one of his most affecting.

On the heels of this burst of Beatles interest, McCartney sounds vital as ever, giving us a solo album that sits among his best work.

“As You Lie There” is the first song on The Boys of Dungeon Lane, Mc­Cartney’s first studio album in six years, and it sets the tone for this warm, nostalgic late-career masterpiece.

All the strands of the songwriting styles that are weaved throughout his career are lovingly attended to and evolved on the record.

With nimble production and deceptively varied music, The Boys of Dungeon Lane contains all the hallmarks of one of Britain’s finest songwriters.

Despite the absence of any real bombshells, it’s a pleasure to accompany McCartney as he gets back to where he once belonged.

By the time you get to the lushly orchestrated ballad Momma Gets By which closes the album, you’ll want to go straight back to the start to experience it again.

As is usual with contemporary McCartney, there are a couple of songs that don’t quite click – the rocking Come Inside, the unremarkable First Star of the Night – but The Boys of Dungeon Lane seems noticeably more purposeful than a lot of his 21st-century output.

The melodic gift and residual optimism ultimately carry the day aided by the canny ear for a guitar riff that characterised Wings. [Jul 2026, p.82]

The Boys Of Dungeon Lane does everything a Paul McCartney album should do. The vulnerability in his voice adds a peculiar charm: it’s a man looking at an ever-decreasing road ahead with his trademark optimism.

Some songs, like "Ripples In A Pond" (A pop song for his wife Nancy), hit with the contemporary Andrew Wyatt wallop, which is very much why musicians in their ninth decades so revere his production; but as ever, it's the bits where McCartnet lets appearances be damned that work out best. [Jul 2026, p.24]

The Boys of Dungeon Lane is a perfectly professional album, a beautifully realized drip feed of nostalgia with no sharp edges or harmful aftereffects.

Any new work late in a legacy artist’s career could risk falling flat among years of hits or becoming yet another tour of familiar landmarks by relying on nostalgia, and plenty of them have. The Boys of Dungeon Lane flirts with both at times through its copious Beatles references, but it largely avoids either fate because its attention remains grounded in the senses rather than the story.

With its warm, welcome rejection of apathy and cynicism, The Boys of Dungeon Lane is an inviting, accessible and surprisingly memorable listen.

While The Boys Of Dungeon Lane certainly has its moments, it is not quite that record [a late-period masterpiece]. [Jul 2026, p.72]

Not every moment on The Boys of Dungeon Lane captures the electrifying zeal of his best work—but a whole lot of them do, even the nostalgic spots, and it’s hard not to marvel at that idea.