The new Wilco album is called Ode to Joy. Leader Jeff Tweedy knows that you know where that comes from. He also knows that the words work on their own to describe any one of the songs here on this record, out on Friday via the band's own dBpm Records.
"They're really big, big folks songs, these monolithic, brutal structures that these delicate feelings are hung on—that's basically how I feel right now..."
That's what Tweedy said, as recounted in the press materials for this release, and one can listen to this one and sort of understand what he means. If the music here will feel familiar to anyone who's grown up on any form of classic rock, the tunes here also function as folk songs built from the simplest of pieces, and sharpened into perfect individual creations.
"Bright Leaves", opens things with a march-like tempo, and faint smatterings of jazz sprinkled over and under the rock-and-roll. It's an odd, muted start, but an effective one. Elsewhere, "Quiet Amplifier" builds gradually, a series of hooks indebted to Nilsson never reaching the peak you think is coming, while the spry "Everyone Hides" purrs in a more recognizable fashion. If this is alt-rock, it's supple stuff, material that owes more to, say, The Band, than it does to any post-punk set of legends. "White Wooden Cross" is an anti-gospel song, of a sort, and one which seems the most direct thing here on Ode to Joy, while "Hold Me Anyway" rides an infectious solo Lennon-like hook right into your heart. It's aching, understated, and perfectly pitched in terms of the effect aimed for and achieved.
Jeff Tweedy and the musicians here never once overstep on this record, and while I've lost track of Wilco a bit, I think nearly anyone would find something to love here. Ode to Joy is full of simple, precise-yet-loose music, with a tunefulness that echoes the sort of things those of us of a certain age grew up on via FM radio.
Ode to Joy is out on Friday via the band's dBpm Records.
More details on Wilco via the band's official Facebook page, or the band's official website.
[Photo: Annabel Mehren]