First album of almost annoyingly catchy numbers and not much else.
A good record, to be sure, just not great. When looked at in retrospect, and taking into consideration the rest of the band's discography, this album seems very pedestrian. Not knowing now what Jeff Tweedy was capable of writing, these thirteen songs come together to make a very enjoyable album full of rootsy melodies, feel good hooks and that soulful reflective country boy overtone. Not bad by any means, but when Tweedy comes through and reaches his full potential (that he would reach on later albums with much more ease than here) on songs like "Dash 7" and "Blue Eyed Soul," you realize that this was a band just starting out and a tad bit unsure of themselves as a unit. Still pretty country sounding all the way through (not a bad thing, mind you), the album is just fine, but not really all that memorable.
~Austin
Hello, this is the reinvention of Wilco.
It's made clear from the very beginning seconds of Wilco's second album that this is definitely the same band that made A.M., but with a big attitude change. A two disc album that starts off by streching out with "Misunderstood," one of the band's all time best songs to this day. Rising up from an almost tribal drumbeat with layered guitar screeches and slams on top of it and finally evolving into a beautifully melodic tale of introspectivity only to end up once again with a barrell of noise and Jeff Tweedy practically screaming the final lyrics on top of the whole beautiful mess. From there, things seemingly return to business as usual with "Far, Far Away," which ushers in the remainder of disc one and an array of mellow modern americana folk songs and vintage country rockers. But the big thing here is the band's embracing of non-traditional instruments applied to traditional music. Electric pianos and other keyboard instruments are used to great success on the majority of the album making the band's sound more progressive and original than it would have been with normal pianos. Jeff Tweedy's songs suddenly have become less about crafting catchy country-ish songs and more about writing material that is personally close to him, without coming off as pretentious or self important. Simply put, he came into his own as a songwriter on this album and really fleshed out some incredible ideas. He employs everything from noise to horn sections to songs consisting of nothing but guitars with irresistable results. Even the cutesy type rock songs that took up most of their previous album are attempted here with great success. The big success of this album are the ballads and heavily introspective moments, which find Jeff Tweedy taking the role Bob Dylan, circa 1968; but without plagiarizing or even imitating him that much at all. When the second disc opens with "Sunken Treasure" and closes with "The Lonely 1," goosebumps aren't mandatory, but recommended.
~Austin
Full-on orchestrated and sophisticated masterful dark pop.
So far, Wilco was one for two as far as fully successful cohesive albums went, so there was no telling what was in store for them on their third album, a record that took them over a year to complete. Upon hearing the triumphant first track on the album ("Can't Stand It"), it becomes clear why it took them longer than ever before to make the record. This thing is lush and dizzyingly intricate. Not since Beulah or The Cure have I heard such simple-on-the-surface music reveal so many layers of lushness. Mellotrons, cheap organs, bangos, strings, electric pianos and many many more instruments are used at any given moment throughout the record. The music created is the most pop-oriented and least country sounding the band had done up until that point but Jeff Tweedy's introspective lyrics took a turn for the dark side with lines like "She's a jar with a heavy lid. My pop quiz kid, a sleeper kisser, a pretty war. My feelings hid, she begs me not to hit her" (from "She's A Jar") and "I dreamed about killing you again last night and it felt alright..." which is followed by a descriptive tale of what the killer did immediately after the morbid act (from "Via Chicago"), not to mention the entire text of "How To Fight Loneliness" which acts as the cynical anti-socialite's handbook. Amongst dark tales, Jeff Tweedy started to emerge as a stream of consciousness poet with lines like "We fell in love in the key of C" (from "A Shot In the Arm"). With all of this going on, it seems like the album would build up such an intense, manic atmosphere that it would be scattered and difficult to sit through. On the contrary; at this point, it stood up as the band's most cohesive and overall best piece of work to date. They evolved so well on this album and recorded an album full of classic sounding pop music, without the negative conotations that come along with such a label. It retains that rootsy americana feel of their past material, but adds so much more to it, sounding absolutely pristine and polished (kinda like The Kinks, circa 1970). Stunning, truly.
~Austin
Supposedly, this is Wilco's Kid A. It's either a revolution or a "pathetic attempt at being different," depending on who you ask.
The fact that so many were shocked upon hearing Wilco's 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot made one thing clear: a lot of people weren't paying attention to this band before their little tiff with Reprise (which we won't get into here because I'm sure if you're reading this, you're sick of hearing about it by now). The only thing that has really changed from their album here is a couple things: Jeff Tweedy quit trying to maintain and just went off the deep end with his weirdo lyrics and they applied a nice little layer of Pro Tools on top of a small portion of the material. Besides that, anyone who was familiar with the Summerteeth sound of Wilco shouldn't be all that shocked by Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and in fact, should probably embrace it pretty easily. The songs here are a bit longer and concentrate a little more on atmosphere than before but it's nowhere near as progressive as its been made out to be (not that 'being progressive' has any bearing on whether or not the record's any good). It just so happens that the record just ended up being brilliant amidst a bunch of internal drama (founding members Jay Bennett and Ken Coomer left during the album's creation). Forget the press for a second and just take this record in and you'll find a really fantastic album that not only contains brilliantly concise pop songs ("War On War" and "Kamera") but epic introspective tunes that pick up where past gems like "Sunken Treasure" left off ("Ashes of American Flags," "Reservations" and "Jesus, Etc.") and even dips into the band's past for some straight up rootsy rockers ("Heavy Metal Drummer" and "I'm The Man Who Loves You"). Just like their previous album, it offers up a broad pallete of flavors but never once oversteps its bounds or becomes indulgent. It's a wonderful record that is infitely listenable and even now I still find points about the record that I had never noticed before. Excellent.
~Austin
Back into Summerteeth land.
While on tour supporting Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the band released this limited EP as a two disc edition of the album (the first disc being the proper album and the second being the six song EP) and as a free download on their website. It's pretty strong overall, if a little unsurprising. Most of the songs delve into familiar acoustic driven folk rock territory. It's a bit slow after coming out with a bang on the rerecorded and more rockin' version of YHF's "Kamera" (retitled here "Camera"). You also get an early peek at the stream of conscious masterpiece "Handshake Drugs" (which would end up on the group's next album, rerecorded in a better version). The majority of the material here evokes similar feelings that Summerteeth touched upon, so for fans this is a nice (if somewhat predictable) treat.
~Austin
Hello again, this is the re-reinvention of Wilco.
It was a wonder which way they would go so the fact that they've pretty much ditched the laptop-influenced overtones of their last album for their most organic sounding album yet is somewhat surprsing. Usually when a group takes off so far from their starting point, they rarely look back. In this case, they went into the studio and created their most subtle, calm and listener rewarding album yet. Most of the songs revolve around guitar/piano themes and even though their country influences are barely hanging on by a thread, the music still manages to retain that rootsy feel. I was pretty confounded upon hearing this record for the first time, but as I listened to it more, it just unfolded and revealed itself to me, in all its melodic weirdness. From lessons in ten minute long Kraut-rock excercises in repetition ("Spiders (Kidsmoke)") to the kind of brilliant pop song Tweedy seems to bang out at will ("Hummingbord" and "The Late Greats") to a ten minute "interlude" of nothing but guitar feedback ("Less Than You Think"), the album offers the best of the best in the wide array of the left field material that Wilco has been putting out for the past five years. Knob twiddler Jim O'Rourke more or less became an honorary member of the group on this record, and that shows as the band's material starts to sound very similar to O'Rourke's own solo material. Some people may argue that Tweedy has ditched his roots in favor of appealing to the indy rock crowd that embraced Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (who did so probably moreso for its politics than its actual content) while others will say that he's simply following his muse. Whatever way you look at it, you can't deny that the band is moving more and more towards incredible uncharterd territory with each passing album. And I just so happen to think that this is their best one yet.
~Austin
