At this point in Wilco's 15-year history, the band have been a lot of things, all of them sort of nebulous: alt-country, Americana, neo-folk, quasi-experimental, and, if you insist, "dad rock." Miraculously, the disparate strains within the group's catalog have somehow flowed together into a unifying aesthetic, largely due to Jeff Tweedy's distinctive singing voice and remarkable consistency as a songwriter. Though their previous releases, particularly the schizoid A Ghost Is Born, have embraced this eclecticism, the band's seventh proper LP, Wilco (The Album), does just what the title implies, and consolidates their style into a coherent statement of identity.
This is something of a mixed blessing. Though Wilco (The Album) is a good, concise distillation of the band's strengths, it is not their best work, mainly because it lacks the audacity of their four previous efforts. The group's 2000s output thrived on Tweedy's restlessness and perversity, as if each song were penned in part to challenge the preconceptions of listeners eager to pigeonhole his work. The new songs sound like the work of an artist confident enough to step back from personal innovation in order to develop styles and themes already in his playbook. This yields some fine results, such as the flagrantly George Harrison-esque "You Never Know" and the amusingly self-aware "Wilco (The Song)", but the record is more comfortable than exciting or interesting. The more extreme elements of Wilco's style are present-- the sinister Krautrock of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" resurfaces in the paranoid murder fantasy "Bull Black Nova" and the sort of delicately arranged instrumental passages that characterized Sky Blue Sky are evident in a more abbreviated form on "One Wing" and "Country Disappeared"-- but these tics are toned down considerably, blending in seamlessly with simple, straightforward numbers such as "Solitaire", "I'll Fight", and the Feist duet "You and I".
Every song on Wilco (The Album) is written and performed with immaculate precision, though the subtleties in the work gradually reveal their charms upon repeated listening. "Deeper Down" in particular is a marvel in the way its textures shift dramatically from verse to verse without diverting attention from the relative simplicity of its melody and rhythm. Similarly, the way the band effortlessly evokes waves of guilt, anxiety, and fearful resignation in "Bull Black Nova" is masterful and makes the song potentially painful to hear if you're already feeling any of those emotions. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are moments of unapologetic, unguarded beauty, as in the lovely lead guitar and piano parts in "Country Disappeared" and the melodramatic orchestral swell in the otherwise understated "Everlasting Everything".
This is not the music of men trying to be cool; it is the work of veterans unafraid to express mature emotions with an appropriate level of musical depth and nuance. There is certainly more thrill to be found when the band is acting out but there is something rather pleasing about hearing a band sound so comfortable in their skin. Even if you don't connect with the music on Wilco (The Album), you may come away from the record envying their relaxed self-assurance. Being a chilled-out grown-up may not always be exciting, but it's certainly something to admire and respect.
