The Whole Love
4/5
No insult intended, but Wilco are now as comfortable and familiar as a tattered old blanky. Their alt.countryrock/ poppy Americana –shaped by years of exposure to the genre’s elements – is agreeably worn. But if comfort and agreeability were all you wanted, then you’d probably settle for a pair of slippers and an aged tabby. Wilco have more to offer.
Wilco have always dug experimentation as well as mellow rhythmic furrows and gnarly guitar workouts, as was most evident on 2004’s brilliant A Ghost Is Born LP, and it’s this adventurous spirit that guides their eighth. Art of Almost is a thrillingly hectic epic that nods to Japanese psych/kosmische, and flings opens the window on a dozen diverse new tunes that zing with energy. These include a Beatles-ish ‘Sunloathe’, the perky, Hammond-driven ‘I Might’ and good-time chugger ‘Dawned on Me’. There’s also the melancholic pedal-steel of ‘Black Moon’, a lightly frosted ‘Rising Red Lung’ and the sublime closer ‘One Sunday Morning’. Tweedy’s weatherbeaten voice is, as ever, the record’s vital, sweet glue.
