I gave the new Wilco album, called Wilco (The Album), a listen back when it leaked and subsequently became fully streamable on the band’s website a week or two or whenever it happened ago. I wasn’t much impressed but quite frankly I wasn’t in much of a mood for it either, and after that I’ve just been busy or hooked up on other musical things. A few days ago I decided to finally give it another check. This then subsequently turned into more listens.

Here’s Wilco the Album the Nutshell: it’s not great. It’s not near the band’s masterpieces. Its latter half wonks up a bit after a really good first half. But it’s good. It’s addictive. It’s got some really strong moments. It’s actually got that leisured Wilco feeling nailed down successfully rather than how e.g. Sky Blue Sky portrayed it as. I’d go so far as to say that Wilco the Album is what Sky Blue Sky was supposed to be.

The much-maligned Sky Blue Sky was admittedly lovely at places and contains some key highlights, I’ll give it that. The band’s wish was to move away from studio effects and just have fun and chill down in an honest rocking style, but rather than this showing up as a simply stripped down approach backing a great songwriting pen, the album turned the band into something rather forgettable a lot of the time: boring, instead of simply more straightforward in soud. Wilco the Album is pretty much direct continuation of the same stripped-down, chilled out mentality but this time it’s been done right. Rather than being more straightforward, the album relies on the power of subtlety. The hooks are ever-present but not obvious, the band is constantly forging out excellent melodies but they never turn from really pretty into deeply beautiful, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all. Wilco the Album centrepieces Wilco the Band, but isn’t clumsily in your face about it.

The second half of the new one still succumbs to the bore-rock that makes Sky Blue Sky somewhat irritating in places. I love Wilco when they’re not necessarily adventurous, but interesting in their sound. When Tweedy & co get on the mindset where they just want to have fun and rock, the end result doesn’t tend to be particularly memorable or good: the tepidly forgettable “You Never Know” and “Sunny Feeling” being the prime showcases. Even the best cuts of the latter half do not really stand up as their own individual pieces: the moody “Country Disappeared” brings into mind the SBS highlight “Impossible Germany”, while the melodically lovely “I’ll Fight” bears way more than a passing resemblance to the brilliant “On and On and On”, also from Sky Blue Sky. The songs in-between these ones are, while not great, still rather nice.

But then there’s the first half, the reason why Wilco the Album will get its share of positive comments in the future from my way. “Wilco the Song” is a tongue-in-cheek fun rocker that does the miracle trick of actually sounding fun rather than just boringly ordinary. “Deeper Down” is a playful atmospheric pop piece with some wonderfully subtle drumming rolls and frolicky melodies. “One Wing”, the album’s best cut, carries Tweedy’s best vocal performance on the album which is then combined with a killer chorus and some fantastic musical details that pop up here and there. “Bull Black Nova” is a grooved-out, hypnotic jam akin to A Ghost Is Born’s “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” but in a smaller scale, which wonderfully moves onto the Feist duet “You and I” that takes a soft and pretty backing and turns the whole thing into a memorably wonderful little ditty with the great vocal power of Feist and Tweedy combined – the two really have charisma together. It’s pretty much a power-house run of quality and a perfect example of how a more subtler, slightly stripped-down approach can work for the band who’s peak periods are marked by studio experimentation.

I haven’t yet sinked into the album as much as I truly want but after being somewhat wary on the band’s future due to all the comments about disliking being locked up in the studio and such, I can breathe a bit more easily again now that I’ve heard the new one. I don’t think Wilco (The Album) will ever raise to the league of the band’s best works (that is, A Ghost Is Born, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in my books) but who knows? There’s power in the subtlety here…

One Wing (live)

Tags: Wilco

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