Wilco (The Album) [LP/CD]

Performer: Wilco
Producer: Jim Scott; Wilco
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Though many fans suspected that Wilco's self-titled seventh studio album would mark a return to the wild cut-and-paste experimentalism of YANKEE FOXTROT HOTEL, the record was in fact more of a piece with its traditional-sounding 2007 predecessor, SKY BLUE SKY. Heavily influenced by `60s and `70s pop music, songs like "Sunny Feeling" and "You Never Know" sounded as if the band might have been finally attempting to score the elusive hit single. Beginning with a powerful riff reminiscent of the Kinks' "Picture Book," the disc is all strummy guitars, tinkling keyboards, big choruses, George Harrison-style slide guitar, and stacked harmony vocals, conjuring aural images of bands such as Love, Wings, and Badfinger. Throughout, the songwriting is tight and focused, making WILCO one of the most instantly accessible albums in the Chicago-based group's catalog. Rock & roll lifers that they are, Wilco knows the implications of a self-titled album, how any record bearing an eponymous name is bound to be seen as a reintroduction. That's why they puncture Wilco (The Album) with a parenthetical aside, a slyly ironic joke that deflates the notion that Wilco is returning to its roots while signaling that the band is finally lightening up again, a notion reinforced by the llama birthday party on the cover. And, to be fair, "reintroduction" is indeed too strong a term for a band that never went away, they merely spent a decade-and-a-half on a walkabout, consuming anything that came their way, changing their tone and tenor from record to record. Wilco (The Album) finds Wilco the band happily returning from the wilderness, taking stock of where they've been and consolidating all they've learned into one tight, likeable record. (The Album) never veers too far into the experimental -- nor does it dabble in country-rock, a sound that's largely remained verboten in Wilco ever since their debut -- but the reverberations of the Jay Bennett era can be heard in how "Bull Black Nova" builds to a shuddering, noise-filled coda, or the band's general mastery of varying degrees of light and shade. All this studio texture is not the focal point, it's the coloring on a collection of straight-ahead rock and pop songs, tunes that are generally soft, sunny, and hazy -- quite exquisitely so on the '70s George Harrison pastiche "You Never Know" and the nearly Baroque "Deeper Down" -- but also jangly and sparkly, as on "Sonny Feeling," or that have some measure of backbone, as on the spiky "I'll Fight" and the cool shuffle of "Wilco (The Song)." If Wilco (The Album) as a whole is considerably less ambitious than its predecessors, it compensates with its easy confidence and craft: it's the work of a band that knows their strengths and knows what they're all about, and it's ready to settle into an agreeably comfortable groove. [An LP/CD version was also released.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Rolling Stone (p.80) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] triumph of determined simplicitiy....What is most striking about the restraint here is the elegance and defiance packed inside." Spin (p.79) - "WILCO, the band's seventh studio effort, treats verse-chorus-verse basics like holy truths....And it's fantastic." Alternative Press (p.115) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Wilco continue to reign in their experimental fuzz, focusing more on pretty melodies, upbeat toe-tappers and sweet acoustic numbers for their seventh full-length." Dirty Linen (p.57) - "There's a lucidity to the sound and a sense of mix-and-match variety that haven't been heard since YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT..." Billboard (p.34) - "Windows-down anthemic pop like 'You Never Know' sits alongside the tense, textural rocker 'One Wing' and the dark, pulsating murder-escape drama 'Bull Black Nova.'" Paste (magazine) (p.54) - "The album is full of thoughtful, artfully crafted lyrics wrapped in memorable hooks that should stand the test of time." Record Collector (magazine) (p.98) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "'Bull Black Nova,' something of a 'Spiders' retooling, is pleasingly motorik..."

When pioneering alt-country band Uncle Tupelo split in the mid-1990s, they broke off into two camps. Jay Farrar started the rootsy, twangy (if lyrically elliptical) Son Volt. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Jeff Tweedy, who co-led the band with Farrar, established himself anew with Wilco. Though Wilco initially offered country-influenced rock not unlike that of Tweedy's former outfit, they quickly progressed through the Stones-meet-Big Star shambling two-disc epic BEING THERE, the Beach Boys/Beatles-influenced pop of SUMMER TEETH, and the screwy, art-damaged, Jim O'Rourke-produced YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT, whose release was notoriously delayed due to label apathy, though the album was eventually hailed as the group's masterpiece.

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