With its eighth studio album, Wilco proves it still deserves its seat on the alternative rock throne. "The Whole Love," the band's first release on their own label, dBpm, delivers 12 solid tracks that strike the perfect balance between fresh and familiar. The band manages to walk the fine line of creating a unique and consistent sound while still evolving and pushing itself musically. Each track off "The Whole Love" is expertly crafted and lovingly polished by frontman Jeff Tweedy.
Tweedy employs a mix of tight, catchy hooks and loose, open arrangements, deftly moving between these two approaches. The first track, "Art of Almost," is a chaotic, fuzz-driven jam that proves to be one of the album's strongest songs. A tight, engaging drum beat anchors the massive wall of synths and distortion in the background. Tweedy guides the song with his lively vocals until the track devolves into noise and screeching guitar solos. It's a journey of a song and a good metaphor for the album as a whole. Above all else, Wilco makes interesting, engaging music that takes the listener on an unpredictable ride from start to finish.
Impressively, each track sounds unique while still feeling related and cohesive. The fuzz bass of "Art of Almost" works its way into a few other songs as a nice recurring motif. While much of the album's tones back the amount of distorted craziness, there is a nice sense of movement and continuity from song to song. Wilco manages to make "The Whole Love" an album best listened to straight through, while still ensuring each track works well on its own.
"Born Alone" is a particularly catchy tune. The echoing of the main vocal theme with a droning electric guitar repeats the central hook until right before it loses its impact. The breakdown of the seemingly straightforward beat and structure in the middle of the song keeps it fresh for another few verses. Like many of the tracks, "Born Alone" ends with an instrumental crescendo of sorts by building on the song's established themes and tearing them apart.
Other standout tracks include "I Might," "Dawned On Me" and "Rising Red Lung," but each song earns its place on the album. The masterful arrangements weave dozens of instruments into the picture without getting busy or overpowering. The sliding pedal steel guitars on the mellow and acoustic "Rising Red Lung" build to a nice crescendo at the end.
The way the band works with these kinds of crescendos keeps the listener constantly engaged. A lack of dynamics can kill an otherwise great song, but Wilco has a keen ear and avoids this problem. At this point in Wilco's long career, it knows exactly what it is doing — and its savvy shows.
After all, not every band can write a 12-minute song that manages to avoid feeling like a 12-minute song. The album's final track, "One Sunday Morning," moves along at a steady pace and employs all the catchy hooks, interesting arrangements and clever uses of dynamics discussed to make its 12-minute run fly by. Tweedy establishes the melodies that drive the song, and then he plays around with them at length until the entire track melts into a loose jam that picks those melodies apart. It's a great ending to a great album.
"The Whole Love" proves to be Wilco's strongest offering in recent years, and may even overshadow their early masterpiece, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (2002), the first album to garner them attention. For fans of Wilco or well-crafted alternative rock and Americana, this album is a must-have, but everyone owes it to himself to give it a listen.
