Wilco 'Wilco (The Album)'

Wilco will have learnt throughout their career that you can't please all of the people all of the time. Their more traditional alt.country fans were alienated by the experimental and noisy sound of 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' and 'A Ghost Is Born' (their two finest albums in my opinion) and 2007's 'Sky Blue Sky' with its smooth textures was a disappointment for followers looking more rattle and buzz. Here, Wilco will surely succeed in pleasing all of the people...some of the time, as anyone who has ever liked Wilco's music will surely find something to enjoy in this new record.

The first thing to say is that it all sounds terrific. Wilco use a style of production here that I particularly like, it sounds similar to the analogue recording on the Jenny Lewis LP last year. Each instrument is given so much space. This works particularly well for guitarist Nels Cline, who plays some stunningly dramatic electric guitar on this record, at times on extended solos, at other times just ripples in the background, but always brilliant. He is a truly innovative guitarist and perhaps the best we have at the moment.

'Wilco (The Album)' opens, appropriately, with 'Wilco (The Song)', a piano and guitar led old school rock song with just a hint of drone in the background. It does have some pretty cringeworthy lyrics which serve as a message to the band's fans that 'Wilco loves you'. It doesn't seem to be tongue in cheek. Tweedy's appalling lyrics do not detract from a great song though.

Things really kick off with track 4, 'Bull Black Nova', a terrifying kraut-rock workout that sounds like a shorter version of 'A Ghost Is Born' track 'Spiders'. Kline and Tweedy are superb here, Kline's solo is ear-splitting and abstract, Tweedy is on the edge vocally and the whole thing is a five minute blitz, perhaps their best ever recording.

A whole album like that would never work, marvellous as it may be. So, 'You and I' which follows is a whispered acoustic ballad and a duet with Feist. It is light and gentle, only spoilt slighly by a harsh fade out. In turn, 'You Never Know' which comes next is another departure, a feel-good rock song with some traditional rock guitar and a catchy chorus. It could be a hit!

The second half of the album is more straight-forward. 'Country Disappeared', however, is a thing of beauty. A piano led bruised ballad about watching a country deteriorate from the eyes of the TV news, Tweedy sings this so well, it is touching and affecting without ever being overblown. Same again with 'Solitaire', an acoustic number about the joys of selfless living with Tweedy's vocal like a whisper in the ear.

After a couple of fairly routine upbeat numbers, the closing track 'Everlasting Everything' sounds like Wilco's very own take on Bill Fay's 'Be Not So Fearful' a song they regularly cover live. Strings swoon in the background, a bell rings, but it never turns into the big epic that it always seems on the verge of being. It is all the better for it.

As I said at the start, anyone who has ever loved Wilco will like at least some of this album. In its own right though, it is perhaps the most assured release of their career. In many ways this sounds like a 'Best of Wilco'

9.4

['Wilco (the album)' is out now. TracksandGigs recommends the 180gram vinyl version with free cd]