Ode To Joy

Such moments of challenging, bold experimentation (which Wilco hasn't really bothered with off-stage on this scale for a while), coupled with a set of by turns desolate and uplifting, strange and sweet tunes, makes Ode to Joy mandatory listening for anyone interested in the enduring creative potential of rock - sorry, folk – music.

There’s nothing about Ode to Joy that is meant to set the airwaves afire. It’s raw elegance; a surplus of creativity delivered with equal portions of restraint.

No sound is extraneous, every lick is needed, a minimalist musicianship that focuses you on Jeff Tweedy’s heartbreaking words. Their best in ages. [Jan 2020, p.71]

It's a multi-layered affair but each one provokes serious feelings and thoughts for those who peel them back.

It all adds up to yet another winning set from a band still to release a subpar album in a 25-year career.

The most striking aspect of Ode to Joy is how weary Tweedy sounds. From upfront political themes (Citizens, which wavers and rumbles with minor harmonies, lines about white lies, and distorted guitars) to thoughts of personal tragedy (White Wooden Cross), there's one clear conclusion: Tweedy is beaten down. But Tweedy is at his best when he's processing that exhaustion.

These are songs where the expressiveness of the lyrics and the baldness of the music – usually big, simple blocks, put together like Lego – work in tandem. The plainness of the instrumentation heightens the uncertainty and ambivalence in Tweedy’s writing.

Ode to Joy is the culmination of a musical evolution Wilco have been working towards for years. Ode to Joy holds a microscope to the small moments of life – which, thanks to the current political landscape, we’re often in danger of missing – and encourages us to see and cherish them.

Ode to Joy reveals that after their sabbatical, Wilco are more than willing to explore the boundaries of their music, and they do so with the confidence and sense of daring that has marked their best work from Being There onward.

This is a quietly momentous album of depth, soothing in its introspection.

Ode To Joy shows off some of Wilco’s prettiest and most comforting songs, Tweedy’s enlarged heart transplanted back into a band — its lineup now unchanged for roughly half of its 25-year history — that’s never sounded more empathic.

In trying times, Wilco have found some joy in creativity and made another album true to themselves, full of “poetry and magic” to console and inspire.

This is a sparse, minimalist ode to joy. [Nov 2019, p.88]

Ode To Joy shivers on this ledge between defiance and dissolution. Despite Tweedy's fears, it turns out more Wilco music is exactly what's needed. [Nov 2019, p.117]

Ode to Joy’s beguiling folk songs are direct and generous, quiet sounds coming from a big room.

Ode to Joy reminds us of how good the band can be with the benefit of time and deliberation.

There’s a subtle, but detectable, undercurrent of joy here—not in the subject matter, but in the music itself, as if each song represents a little burst of gratitude shared among the musicians who made it. That Wilco can still summon that sense of buoyancy on their 11th album should be gratifying to listeners, too. It’s a sign that the band continues to grow and evolve, which makes these songs a fitting ode indeed.

Ode to Joy is a seemingly small-scale record; a pale-skinned beauty of an album that has much to say, says it deliberately, often quietly; like a whisper of advice from an old friend reminding you that you, me, we... need to carry on.

It’s difficult to escape the fact that there is little to commend Ode to Joy for beyond its exceptionally competent loveliness. That is, however, no reason to completely disregard it.

nyone who comes to “Ode to Joy” expecting Beethovenian rapture and millions embracing will likely be perplexed by this enigmatic 11-song collection. The album is mostly slow and muted. ... You have to listen hard for the joy, but in the end it’s there — the kind of joy of that’s hard-won and never fully shakes off the difficult and broken world from which it emerges.

Tthe album is a bit monochromatic, lacking the classic guitar heroism that has, in the past, allowed Wilco to buck the dad-rock label. Twelve years on from Sky Blue Sky, the band would benefit from opening up their sound again—and getting a little bit weird.

All in all, Ode to Joy is a solid album, if a bit on the languid side, but feels more like a Jeff Tweedy solo album than a proper Wilco album.

Though it encompasses traditional elements, “Ode to Joy” falls on the quirkier side of the Wilco spectrum, an album that prizes subtlety and intimacy over immediacy and dynamics.