Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

Wilco’s newest release and seventh studio outing, Wilco (the album), took shape quickly in January 2009 after the band traveled to Auckland, New Zealand to participate in an Oxfam International benefit project. The band began cutting tracks for the new album, producing it themselves with the help of engineer Jim Scott. The sextet completed the album at its Chicago loft studio and performed some of the new material in April at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Wilco (the album) combines the intimacy of its previous studio release, Sky Blue Sky (2007), with the experimentation of A Ghost Is Born (2004) in a set that boasts strong melodies and gorgeous, often unabashedly pop arrangements. Wilco has clearly laid out the welcome mat to admirers of all aspects of its career. The album even opens with “Wilco (the song),” originally unveiled in the group’s performance on The Colbert Report last October. Vocalist Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics remain frank and fascinating, and, similar to Sky Blue Sky, most songs are conscise. “Bull Black Nova,” however, features a dramatically building arrangement and thrilling guitar crescendo that comes across as more of a duel than a jam. It’s followed by the gentle “You and I,” a duet between Tweedy and Canadian indie sensation Feist, and “You Never Know,” a glorious anthem. The album culminates with “Everlasting Everything,” a piano-driven ballad with delicate sonic nuances that lyrically celebrates love’s enduring power.

The vinyl version of Wilco (the album) is pressed on 180-gram audiophile-quality vinyl and includes the complete album on CD and MP3. Per Wilco's high standards, the sonics are tremendous, filled with immense detail, warmth, and presence. Yet another masterwork by the best American rock band going.

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