| Wilco – The Whole Love |
| Written by Derek Harrison | |||
| Wednesday, 12 October 2011 14:22 | |||
 There's an odd thing that happens from time to time, and it has happened to Wilco: the band has achieved more popularity strictly because of the fact that people haven't heard of them. Generally, the average music listener doesn't know who Wilco is, and yet Wilco somehow manages to be much more popular than artists whom everyone has heard of.
I'm not the average music listener, though Wilco was around long before I started paying attention. When Andrew Bird opened for Wilco in Detroit in 2005 is when I first seriously looked them up. I'm still kicking myself now for not going to the show, but I didn't yet know what I would be missing, particularly since this was the same tour during which the band recorded Kicking Television, their only live album to date and one of their best albums overall.
When Wilco released their self-titled seventh album in 2009, I sat down and listened to the vinyl start to finish, and witnessed the cementing of their new most common criticism: they have become "dad rock". Sitting down to listen to The Whole Love, I was crossing my fingers for anything other than that.
The first moments of the album were a good sign. A crunchy glitch-electronic soundscape plays off a drum groove which unexpectedly gets overtaken by an orchestral swell and the sudden appearance of Jeff Tweedy's welcome voice. The song shapes up to be a heavily electonica-influenced groove with funky bass, fuzz guitar, and Glenn Kotche's award-winning drumming paired up with spacey textural work from the band's two keyboardists. Wilco succeeds in a surprising change of tack with this album opener without straying out of the bounds of their considerable abilities and still retaining a distinct Wilco-ness. The rock out tagged to the end of the 7:17 track shows Nels Cline cutting loose more than he had the chance to on the relatively subdued Wilco (The Album).
"I Might," the leading single, continues in the vein of not replicating the sound of the previous album, with a jaunty arrangement of acoustic guitar, fuzz bass, organ, glockenspiel and a snare-driven beat. The song is not an immediate classic but shows the band having fun and doing it well. Wilco continues playing with clever, detailed arrangements in the next track, "Sunloathe," but so far the album has just been cool arrangements rather than good songs. The chorus of "Dawned On Me" is the first proper hook on the album, anchoring the upbeat American rock song, while grungy guitars and Cline's schizophrenic lead playing lend a welcome grit to the track.
"Black Moon" is a folk song that would have been mistaken for Glen Hansard if it weren't for the slide guitar thrown in for good measure. The track is impeccably produced and emotively sung but suffers in the melody department, a rare thing for a Jeff Tweedy folk song. "Born Alone" is reminiscent of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in mood, melody and groove, but the catchiness is not what it used to be. "Open Mind" is a country song which again puts the melody up front but its derivativeness once again shows that Tweedy is not the melodic force he once was.
There's something charming about "Capitol City." There's a certain relaxed attitude about it, and the arrangement, though still occasionally threatening to overdo it (like on most of the album) remains for the most part clear, with less muddiness and loss of detail than the last few tracks. The Kinks flair to the tune gets especially saturated from the 2:30 mark. Though that's not necessarily a bad thing, the main problem with The Whole Love is its derivativeness. Wilco's music has always been heavily rooted in the American pop tradition but Tweedy's song-writing has never been quite as unoriginal as this. The same old organ groove on "Standing O" takes it to the next level beyond the realm of good taste.
"Rising Red Lung" is the best song on the album. Distinctly Tweedy, nothing derivative, arrangement both clever and tasteful – just go listen to it. It's followed by the title track "Whole Love" which is another strong cut driven by upbeat acoustic guitar and featuring a classic vocal performance.
This makes way to the closing track, "One Sunday Morning," which opens with the same finger-picking pattern on Tweedy's acoustic as previously opened both "Black Moon" and "Rising Red Lung." The piano and glockenspiel arrangement is understated and perfect. Tweedy sings in a low tone as if he's looking at himself and nodding, which is exactly the mood that marks someone as a great singer-songwriter. At 12:04, the closing track of The Whole Love is a sit-down-and-listen-to-it epic, the type of song that if it's playing overhead you wonder "when is this song gonna end?" but when you sit down and listen to the entire length of the song it's a cathartic experience, comparable to the long songs of Dylan and Cohen.
The Whole Love is a definite improvement over Wilco (The Album), but suffers from the excess and forced melodies that the band has been moving toward since Sky Blue Sky. One the whole, however, it has made one big change from the previous two albums: The Whole Love is not dad rock. True fans should get it, but if you don't have Kicking Television or Sky Blue Sky yet you would do better there.
For more articles like Wilco – The Whole Love, please visit theMusic/Album Reviews Section of TimesSquare.com
|
