Wilco (The Album)

Wilco (The Album) adds yet another chapter to the story, and if this band's relevance is to continue going forward, then let the resilent closer 'Everlasting Everything ' score our impending sunrise. [Summer 2009, p.90]

Chicago's veteran alt-rockers haven't sounded this much fun in ages, their seventh album balancing their easy-going and experimental sides.

Wilco (the album), the band's seventh studio effort, treats verse-chorus-verse basics like holy truths. The result is the rare rock album about acceptance. And it's fantastic.

Like with many good rock records, bits of whimsy, melancholy, confusion, and joy swirl around the songs of Wilco (the album). So while it may not feel as groundbreaking as previous releases, it’s just as human.

Wilco's seventh studio album is a triumph of determined simplicity by a band that has been running from the obvious for most of this decade.

Surprisingly laidback new dispatch from uptight country rockers.

Wilco (The Album) is just another wonderful and special reason to know that Wilco, as a band, are an astounding band for all to love-or at least as much as they say they love us.

The band have covered all bases this time; pushing themselves to experiment while still celebrating what makes their music so catchy and compelling.

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.

Wilco (the album) picks up more or less where 2007’s mellow and soulful "Sky Blue Sky" left off, but subtly expands that record’s parameters.

It’s middle-of-the-road, but only by Wilco standards. A worthwhile listen.

Wilco continues to reign in their experiemntal fuzz, focusing more on pretty melodies, upbeat toe-tappers and sweet acoustic numbers for their seventh full-length. [Aug 2009, p.115]

Wilco (The Album) is as consummate as anything its author has yet delivered. [Aug 2009, p.97]

Everything here delivers the predominant warmth "Sky Blue Sky" lacked and betrays a sharp ear for melody that has often been obscured by sonic theatrics. [Aug 2009, p.1000]

What it lacks in identity, perhaps a statement of purpose locked down by a title, the tightly produced, musically pointed Wilco compensates for in near-total coalescence. Its hope, vulnerability, and fears converse as one Tweedy.

Tweedy's ability to craft great hooks does make this worth a listen, and maybe the band simply needs a pause to catch its creative breath. Let's just hope the next one isn't called Wilco (another album).

Wilco (The Album) finds the band looser and more assertive than they were on their two previous efforts.

The band is still good enough to put across (The Album)’s later songs, thanks to a buzzy ’70s sound that nods to George Harrison here, John Lennon there, and Tom Petty all over the place. But the “reaching for something indescribable” feeling of songs like 'Deeper Down' and 'One Wing' is sorely lacking amid the pat familiarity of 'I’ll Fight' and 'Everlasting Everything.'

The album is full of thoughtful, artfully crafted lyrics wrapped in memorable hooks that should stand the test of time. What’s missing is the experimentation that was Wilco’s hallmark until "Sky Blue Sky."

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.

The band's current six-member lineup, together five years and responsible for 2007's stunning "Sky Blue Sky," is its strongest to date--and Wilco (The Album) is as well-rounded an effort as the group has released.

While (the album) tips far more convincingly on the successful end of the scales, there remains the sense of a band playing safer than needs be; a sextet pushing against their limits but never straining outright at them.

No one ought to begrudge Tweedy his hard-won peace of mind, but there's less of the emotional, or musical, turbulence here that made for such compelling listening on previous Wilco records.

The album rumbles out of the gate with a scruffy exuberance reminiscent of the early tracks of "Summerteeth," before finding its way back to the high-end country art rock the band has specialized in since we first found out Tweedy gets bad headaches. [Summer 2009, p.69]

It doesn't help that Wilco is such a complacent album, so easily redolent of sounds and textures the band has called up in the past.

While Wilco (The Album) has its strong moments, it does not have many innovative ones.

It's well written, nicely produced and tastefully retro, with a few vaguely experimental bits.

The major problem is that this doesn’t sound like a band that’s pushing itself any more, or at least not making the same sort of pushes that lead to the brilliant sucker-punch of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the vastly underrated A Ghost Is Born.

Like a slightly under-serving best of, though, we get glimpses of what they've done before, but nothing substantial enough to set a new high-water mark.

To simply not want to skip tracks isn't exactly saying anything, and certainly not that Wilco has made any kind of return to relevance. But Jeff the person is doing just fine, and instead of chastising this release, let's be happy that the guy who gave us more serious, occasionally harrowing masterpieces such as Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot finally seems to be having some fun. Next time it'd be nice if he let us in on it.

Wilco (The Album) isn’t a failure--not by any means--but when a band has become so attached to the notion of change and then stagnates, it casts a heavy shadow that’s hard to escape.

Clearly, this record is boring. Whether or not that’s a good thing remains up to your discretion.