Wilco (The Album), with its in-your-face title and cover art, is a true testament to the band's progress toward mastery of their unique blend of country music and indie rock. The first three tracks on the album are vintage Wilco at its finest: they exemplify everything I love about the band, including Jeff Tweedy's emotive vocal performance and the group's powerful songwriting. The aptly-titled opener "Wilco The Song" is an upbeat opening track that is sure to get stuck in your head (and with it the line "Wilco, I love you," which could be an interesting marketing strategy but was probably intended as an ironic statement.) "Deeper Down" is more interesting musically, with its Andrew Bird-esque backdrop of high-pitched strings, while "One Wing" is an all-around incredible song that captures the essence of the entire album. "Bull Black Nova" is a more experimental track, with extremely repetitive pulsating notes to balance out Tweedy's smooth lyricism. The next track, "You And I," is the charming collaboration with Feist that everyone has been so excited about, and it certainly lives up to the standards of both artists. The album takes a turn toward the more boring with the next few tracks, but then returns to form with the heartbreaking "Solitaire" and the rock anthem "I'll Fight." "Sunny Feeling" and "Everlasting" (which are both steadily growing on me) end the album as polar opposites, with the former continuing the basic rock styles and the latter closing with an extremely mellow build-up that evokes "On And On And On" from Sky Blue Sky and possibly even "Reservations" from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The comparisons to YHF end there, however, and those expecting a "comeback album" will be disappointed. Fans of Summerteeth, A Ghost Is Born, and Sky Blue Sky won't, however, and the album is a perfectly-fitting addition to Wilco's extensive discography.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Wilco (The Album)
Combining the meandering laziness of Sky Blue Sky with the more upbeat tunes of Summerteeth, Wilco assemble another album of warm, mellow summer songs, just in time for the season with its release on June 30th.
Wilco (The Album), with its in-your-face title and cover art, is a true testament to the band's progress toward mastery of their unique blend of country music and indie rock. The first three tracks on the album are vintage Wilco at its finest: they exemplify everything I love about the band, including Jeff Tweedy's emotive vocal performance and the group's powerful songwriting. The aptly-titled opener "Wilco The Song" is an upbeat opening track that is sure to get stuck in your head (and with it the line "Wilco, I love you," which could be an interesting marketing strategy but was probably intended as an ironic statement.) "Deeper Down" is more interesting musically, with its Andrew Bird-esque backdrop of high-pitched strings, while "One Wing" is an all-around incredible song that captures the essence of the entire album. "Bull Black Nova" is a more experimental track, with extremely repetitive pulsating notes to balance out Tweedy's smooth lyricism. The next track, "You And I," is the charming collaboration with Feist that everyone has been so excited about, and it certainly lives up to the standards of both artists. The album takes a turn toward the more boring with the next few tracks, but then returns to form with the heartbreaking "Solitaire" and the rock anthem "I'll Fight." "Sunny Feeling" and "Everlasting" (which are both steadily growing on me) end the album as polar opposites, with the former continuing the basic rock styles and the latter closing with an extremely mellow build-up that evokes "On And On And On" from Sky Blue Sky and possibly even "Reservations" from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The comparisons to YHF end there, however, and those expecting a "comeback album" will be disappointed. Fans of Summerteeth, A Ghost Is Born, and Sky Blue Sky won't, however, and the album is a perfectly-fitting addition to Wilco's extensive discography.
Wilco (The Album), with its in-your-face title and cover art, is a true testament to the band's progress toward mastery of their unique blend of country music and indie rock. The first three tracks on the album are vintage Wilco at its finest: they exemplify everything I love about the band, including Jeff Tweedy's emotive vocal performance and the group's powerful songwriting. The aptly-titled opener "Wilco The Song" is an upbeat opening track that is sure to get stuck in your head (and with it the line "Wilco, I love you," which could be an interesting marketing strategy but was probably intended as an ironic statement.) "Deeper Down" is more interesting musically, with its Andrew Bird-esque backdrop of high-pitched strings, while "One Wing" is an all-around incredible song that captures the essence of the entire album. "Bull Black Nova" is a more experimental track, with extremely repetitive pulsating notes to balance out Tweedy's smooth lyricism. The next track, "You And I," is the charming collaboration with Feist that everyone has been so excited about, and it certainly lives up to the standards of both artists. The album takes a turn toward the more boring with the next few tracks, but then returns to form with the heartbreaking "Solitaire" and the rock anthem "I'll Fight." "Sunny Feeling" and "Everlasting" (which are both steadily growing on me) end the album as polar opposites, with the former continuing the basic rock styles and the latter closing with an extremely mellow build-up that evokes "On And On And On" from Sky Blue Sky and possibly even "Reservations" from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The comparisons to YHF end there, however, and those expecting a "comeback album" will be disappointed. Fans of Summerteeth, A Ghost Is Born, and Sky Blue Sky won't, however, and the album is a perfectly-fitting addition to Wilco's extensive discography.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment