Wilco [The Album]

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Wilco

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Since its debut album "A.M.", Wilco has gone through a lot of ups and downs commercially, even though the band has enjoyed ever-climbing critical success, perhaps none more so than with the long-delayed (because of label problems) 2002 "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" album, in my book stil the finest album of the band. Yet always throughout you got the sense that Jeff Tweedy, the band's singer-song writer, was trying to prove something. With the band's reputation clearly established, now comes the 7th studio album, 2 years after the slightly disappointing (if ambitious) "Sky Blue Sky" album.

"Wilco (the album)" (11 tracks; 43 min.) kicks off with perhaps the band's most irreverent/accessible and tongue-in-cheek song ever, "Wilco (the song)", with great lyrics like "Do you dabble in depression/Is someone twisting a knife in your back/Are you being attacked/Wilco will love you baby". This should find plenty of airplay on mainstream commercial radio if it was still any good, which of course it isn't. The best songs on the album are on the first half, such as beautiful pensive "One Wing", which is followed by the most adventurous track on here, "Bull Black Nova" which eventually gives way to a searing guitar solo from Nels Cline. It is followed by a gentle "You and I", featuring Feist on vocals. The first half of the album is capped by an exuberant "You Never Know". I rate the first half of the album 4.5 stars. The second half doesn't contain as many attention-grabbing songs, although there are still a couple of nuggets, such as the quiet "Solitaire", the feisty and instantly likeable love song "I'll Fight", and the beautiful closer "Everlasting Everything". I rate the second half of the album 3.5 stars.

At 43 min. this album clips by in no time. There is no grand experimenting here that marked the YHF or "A Ghost is Born" albums. Perhaps for the first time ever, Jeff Tweedy sounds like he is at peace with himself, sounding relaxed and confident, and bringing nice, but not ground-breaking, songs. That aside, Wilco has ascended as one of the top live acts around, period. I've seen the band many times in the last 10 years, most recently a few weeks ago at the Bonnaroo music festival, where they brought a fabulous 2 hr set, featuring a number of the songs of the new album, which mashed nicely with older tunes. In all, "Wilco (the album)" brings forth a nice, mature album from a band that knows where it's at, with confidence. I've been on a long ride with this band, and I really like what I'm hearing. Last but not least: props for the cover art of the album, I just love it.