Together At Last
by Jeff Tweedy
  • Record Label: Anti-
  • Release Date: Jun 23, 2017
Metascore
74

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
Buy Now
Buy on
  1. The A.V. Club
    Jun 23, 2017
    91
    Another side-project song, Golden Smog’s “Lost Love,” gets sweetly chilled, and the Summerteeth deep cut “In A Future Age” loses some of its flair from the album version but gains intimacy. That’s true of this whole exercise, really, but the trade-off works fantastically well on those particular songs.
  2. Magnet
    Jul 18, 2017
    80
    Nothing truly "new" but still revealing surprises and delights for the initiated. [No. 144, p.61]
    All this publication's reviews
  3. The Quietus
    Jun 27, 2017
    80
    What this amounts to is a collection that’s a good way in to the work of a songwriter whose output is three decades strong and a welcome addition to Tweedy’s discography in its own right.
  5. Record Collector
    Jun 23, 2017
    80
    A thoughtfully compiled career-spanning collection, performed solo on acoustic guitar.
  6. Q Magazine
    Jun 20, 2017
    80
    The results are highly satisfying. [Aug 2017, p.110]
    All this publication's reviews
  7. Paste Magazine
    Jun 23, 2017
    78
    A few songs on Together At Last don’t have much to offer if you’re familiar with the album versions, including “Muzzle of Bees” and “In A Future Age.” The former, in particular, misses the noisy burst Tweedy’s band mates provided. But even they are effortlessly listenable, because Tweedy makes them so.
  8. Consequence
    Jun 20, 2017
    75
    Even without the willful innovation, the record is important evidence to just how strong and poignant his songs are in skeletal form. Wilco is nowhere to be found here, but Together at Last is still a very good Jeff Tweedy record that should hold over fans until his band’s next musical flight of fancy.
  9. Prefix Magazine
    Jul 6, 2017
    70
    For Wilco fans, the songs here won’t surprise. But the effectiveness of these performances, the intimacy of the quiet, and the small, new lights they shed on tunes they’ve long known all makes this a worthwhile record. It’s a record of execution over ambition.
  10. AllMusic
    Jun 27, 2017
    70
    If Together at Last is a minor work in Tweedy's catalog, it's a simple but genuine pleasure that may convert a few doubters who haven't been won over by Wilco's eclecticism.
  11. Under The Radar
    Jun 23, 2017
    70
    Here the minimal setting makes not just the lyrics more prominent but the melody as well.
  12. Uncut
    Jun 20, 2017
    70
    Nice, but not quite essential. [Jul 2017, p.40]
    All this publication's reviews
  13. American Songwriter
    Jun 20, 2017
    70
    Song choice is everything with a project like this, and Tweedy is wise to generally stray from obvious selections.
  14. Pitchfork
    Jun 27, 2017
    66
    With his wry charm absent, the album ultimately shows only a partial picture of Jeff Tweedy as a solo artist.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 11 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 11
  3. Negative: 2 out of 11
  1. yannbgiraud
    Jun 26, 2017
    5
    I didn't expect much from this record to be honest. Tweedy's acoustic reworking of nine Wilco songs plus two songs from his side projectsI didn't expect much from this record to be honest. Tweedy's acoustic reworking of nine Wilco songs plus two songs from his side projects (Loose Fur and Golden Smog) seemed a bit redundant, considering the excellent Sunken Treasures that was released some ten years ago. Yet, in some ways, Together At Last managed to disappoint me a bit. Not only are most of these songs less interesting than their fully arranged counterparts but in addition, there exist better acoustic renditions of some of them. One example is "I Am Trying to Break your Heart" which is better in its live version in Sunken Treasures. Granted, what's fine with this album is Jeff's voice. I had become slightly tired of his muddy and dark mumblings on the past two Wilco records, Star Wars and Wilco. Here I find him a bit clearer and I find some of the emotion he could produce on his best albums, from, say, Being There to Sky Blue Sky. But apart from this, I found very little gems on this record. What's the point of rerecording "Sky Blue Sky" in a version that's so close to the original? What's the point of stripping songs such as "Ashes of American Flags" and "Muzzle of Bees" of what used to render them mysterious? Of all the good things in Wilco, what I missed the most, here, is Stiratt's always excellent backing vocals. They are sadly needed on "Via Chicago", which looses its momentum when Tweedy sings "I rest my head on a pillowy star / And a cracked door moon / That says I havent gone too far". Here we have a more tender version but it's kind of sleepy, and ultimately boring. Tweedy fares better on "Laminated Cat" and "Lost Love", maybe because they were not tied to specific arrangements in the first place. The rockers like "Dawned on Me" and "I'm Always in Love" now sound like casual folk songs but they lack depth. And "Hummingbird" seems definitely half baked, Tweedy's whistling would have been funny in a live situation but here it's just a bit cheesy. At least the album ends on a higher note with a beautiful version of "In a Future Age", although this is no improvement on the original either. To sum it up, while quite enjoyable at times, this is a pretty useless record, which just makes me long for Wilco's next Parisian concert.… Full Review »
See all user reviews »