In 1999,
Wilco
willingly abdicated their position as one of the leading acts in the
alt-country
movement to dive head-first into the challenging waters of experimental
pop
with their album
Summerteeth
, and moved even further away from their rootsy origins with
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
and
A Ghost Is Born
, winning the group a new and enthusiastic audience along the way. So it might amuse a number of the band's earlier fans that in many respects
's sixth studio album,
Sky Blue Sky
, sounds like the long-awaited follow-up to 1996's
Being There
-- while it lacks the ramshackle shape-shifting and broad twang of that earlier album,
represents a shift back to an organic sound and approach that suggests the influence of
Neil Young
's
Harvest
and the more polished avenues of '70s
soft rock
.
also marks
's first studio recordings since
Nels Cline
Pat Sansone
joined the group, and they certainly make their presence felt -- with
Cline
,
has its strongest guitarist to date, and while his interplay with
Sansone
on numbers like
"Impossible Germany"
"Walken"
lacks the skronky muscle of his more
avant-garde
work of the past, it's never less than inspired and he works real wonders with
Jeff Tweedy
's lovely melodies.
's keyboard work also shines, adding soulful accents to
"Side with the Seeds"
and Mellotron on
"Leave Me (Like You Found Me),"
as does
Mikael Jorgensen
's piano and organ, and overall this is
's strongest album as an ensemble to date.
Tweedy
's vocals boast a clarity and nuance that reveals he's grown in confidence and skill as a singer, and the songs recall
's beautiful but unsettling mix of lovely tunes and lyrics that focus on troubled souls and crumbling relationships. Between the pensive
"Be Patient with Me,"
the lovelorn
"Hate It Here,"
"On and On and On"
's pledge that "we'll stay together" squared off against the resignation of "Please don't cry/We're designed to die,"
isn't afraid to go to the dark places, but
and his bandmates also find plenty of beauty, inspiration, and real joy along the way, and the album's open, natural sound is an ideal match for the material.
may find
dipping their toes into
roots rock
again, but this doesn't feel like a step back so much as another fresh path for one of America's most consistently interesting bands. ~ Mark Deming