{"id":40369,"date":"2007-07-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/untitled-7\/"},"modified":"2007-07-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-10T00:00:00","slug":"untitled-7","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/untitled-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Untitled"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\">Few bands of the past few years have defied convention as much as Jeff Tweedy and Wilco. <i>Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<\/i> has been labeled as a summative record of the early 21<sup>st<\/sup> century and <i>A Ghost Is Born <\/i>continued that experimentation even further.<\/p>\n<p><i>Sky Blue Sky<\/i> sees a complete reversal of that progressive nature from the past few Wilco records. Instead, Tweedy and Co. have reached further back within their own history and tried to recapture some of the early alt-country raise that first launched them onto the national stage. For the most part, this regression works, but unfortunately the result is not as satisfying as the previous two albums.<\/p>\n<p>In the intervening period between <i>A Ghost Is Born <\/i>and <i>Sky Blue Sky<\/i>, Wilco picked up a few band members. Chief among them is Nels Cline, the guitarist who single-handedly drives this album in the moments when it threatens to bore. Whether it is his subdued playing on the opening track \u201cEither Way\u201d or his incredibly melodic work on \u201cImpossible Germany,\u201d Cline\u2019s addition to the band does make it stronger overall.<\/p>\n<p>One wonders what made Tweedy shift approaches with <i>Sky Blue Sky<\/i>; had he simply run out of ideas? Expectations for Wilco to continue pushing boundaries must have been high, so the fact things are scaled back should not come as a surprise. From a stylistic and lyrical standpoint, nothing is new here, though that should be read as a condemnation of the music itself.<\/p>\n<p>Comparisons between this record and The Eagles have been made in the various review outlets, and truth be told they aren\u2019t off base. Tweey channels Don Henley at various points, and the country-rock made so popular by The Eagles definitely makes appearances here. In many ways, a song like \u201cWhite Light\u201d is a glorious trip through Memory Lane.<\/p>\n<p>The problem that mainly overtakes <i>Sky Blue Sky<\/i> is quite simple; the songs toward the end aren\u2019t that good. Wilco fans probably won\u2019t retrain strong memories from the second half of the disc, with a few minor exceptions. \u201cWalken\u201d is a rare number that seems to capture a rather festive mood from the band; they sound like they are genuinely having fun, which is rare indeed.<\/p>\n<p>At this juncture, one has to question where Wilco is heading. Are they retreating back to the band they once were, making great records like <i>Summerteeth?<\/i> Or, are they going to once again strap on the boxing gloves, get back in the ring and try to craft another knockout progressive album that makes critics drool? Either way, the result will be pleasing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40369","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40369"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}