When I first learned that Wilco would be releasing its eighth album, The Whole Love<\/i>, I was expecting an innocuous adult-contemporary record, something unambitious, 10 to 12 easy listening songs from a band resting on its laurels. But as it turns out, The Whole Love<\/i> is Wilco\u2019s most adventurous album since its most masterful one, 2002\u2019s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<\/i>.<\/p>\n
A Ghost is Born<\/i> (2004) is a fine record, but it\u2019s no Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<\/i> (in all fairness, it\u2019s unreasonable to expect a band to follow-up a masterpiece with another masterpiece). Their last two albums, Sky Blue Sky<\/i> (2007) and 2009\u2019s Wilco (The Album)<\/i>, are so straightforward that they lack cohesion. On The Whole Love<\/i>, however, the album\u2019s innate eclecticism establishes a unified core of twelve songs, which is what Wilco devotees have come to expect.<\/p>\n
Jeff Tweedy and company are singing and playing as if they\u2019ve made a pact with the devil; they\u2019re a band possessed. Wilco\u2019s lineup has never been more consistent, which has certainly contributed to the spontaneity and commanding pace of this particular record: bassist John Stirratt provides the foundation; guitarist Nels Cline is the mad scientist; drummer Glenn Kotche is their secret weapon, while multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen are the George Harrison and Brian Jones of the band, playing solely for the song, connecting the dots and filling in the black and white patterns with vibrant colors. <\/p>\n
It always takes a couple of listens before I\u2019m able to acclimate to the rhythm of a Wilco album. The Whole Love<\/i> was no exception. There is a range of songs\u2014the jaunty \u201cWhole Love,\u201d the power-poppy \u201cBorn Alone,\u201d the acoustic ballad \u201cRising Red Lung,\u201c the punkish \u201cStanding O\u201d and of course the experimental, \u201cOne Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley\u2019s Boyfriend)\u201d and \u201cArt of Almost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilco\u2019s first record on its own label, dBpm, The Whole Love<\/i> opens with the ambitious \u201cArt of Almost,\u201d one of their most challenging songs to date. For anyone who has never heard a Wilco song, \u201cArt of Almost\u201d truly encapsulates the band: after Jeff Tweedy croaks, \u201cI can\u2019t be so far away from my wasteland,\u201d a dance beat ensues, courtesy of Kotche and Stirratt. Its multi-layers consist of percussive sonic rhythms and distorted guitars, like gunshots, that eventually yield to Nels Cline\u2019s hyper-ecstatic guitar solo.<\/p>\n
The other highlight on the record is the twelve-minute epic \u201cOne Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley\u2019s Boyfriend),\u201d that closes the album. Exchanging gorgeous lines with a catchy acoustic guitar hook over a shuffling drumbeat, Tweedy delivers an austere narrative about a father and son: \u201cBless my mind, I miss being told how to live \/ What I learned without knowing \/ How much more I owe than I can give.”<\/p>\n
In a Rolling Stone<\/i> interview Jeff Tweedy said, “A lot has been made of our experimentation, but I’ve always thought that anything I create I should be able to carry with me. A song that works with just a voice and guitar is ideal for communication.”<\/p>\n
Whenever the record is in danger of becoming saccharine and sentimental, Jeff Tweedy yanks the listener back into his evocative, depressive world: \u201cSadness is my luxury.\u201d For the most part, Tweedy\u2019s lyrics are nonsensical, giving rise to sounds rather than meaning, but just when he has completely blurred the line between the poetic and unintelligible, he manages to summon a poignant line. On \u201cBorn Alone,\u201d for instance, the singer utters an obscurity–\u201cPlease come closer to the feather smooth lens fire\u201d\u2014while with his next breath he manages to reveal utter despair, \u201cI was born to die alone.\u201d <\/p>\n
We\u2019ll have to wait and see whether Wilco will continue to peak. But compositions such as the \u201cArt of Almost\u201d and \u201cOne Sunday Morning\u201d suggest that they refuse to rest on their laurels. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":30769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7036],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-42443","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-wilco","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42443","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\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42443"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42443"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}