Wilco (The Review)

Wilco (The Album) came out on Tuesday, and, although I've had the record for two months or so, I feel like I can review it now that it's official. There seem to be are two prevailing opinions amongst Wilco fans about this record: those who are enjoying the sound of a band comfortable with itself, and those who long for the band to return to the experimental sounds of ten years ago.

There are a lot of things that Wilco (The Album) won't do. It's not going to break any musical ground. It's not going to please a lot of the scenester kids that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot brought in. It's not going to rock you too hard. What it will do is give you a set of solid songs by a killer band that will give you a steady supply of material to bob your head to. It may be dad-rock, but it's dad-rock at its finest. This one doesn't have the highs ("You are My Face," "Impossible Germany," "Walken,") of its predecessor, but it also doesn't have the lows ("Shake it Off," "Leave Me Like You Found Me").

Highlights: the George Harrison apeing "You Never Know," Wilco (The Song) - which has gone from seeming like a bad idea to a whimsical highlight, the effortless shifts and turns of "Deeper Down," the mid tempo vibe of "One Wing," the ZZ Top country riffage of "Sonny Feeling," and finally the closer, "Everlasting."

Lowlights: Feist being used on a song as openly lame as "You and I," the pretty-yet-forgettable "Country Disappeared" and "Solitaire," and finally less Nels Cline rockage than on Sky Blue Sky.

This is far from Wilco's best record, and I probably won't go all crazy fanboy and call it the best record of the year (like I did with SBS). It's just a good, enjoyable disc from a band that is still fully fleshing out what this incarnation is capable of.