WILCO
Sky Blue Sky
Nonesuch
· Jeff Tweedy and company have big shoes to fill – their own.
Last June, Wilco began its summer tour with a stirring performance in Calgary. The lucky attendees were among the first to hear the band’s newest material including "Impossible Germany" and "Walken" long before the release of Sky Blue Sky. Ever since the concert, expectations have been sky high for the band’s sixth studio album.
Nels Cline, who was enlisted as lead guitarist immediately after the release of 2004’s A Ghost is Born is responsible for most of the musical embellishment (read: noodling) that was mostly absent from Wilco’s sound since the band’s breakout Being There album in 1996. On Sky Blue Sky, his background in virtuoso free jazz definitely clashes with Tweedy’s folk singer-songwriter approach to writing. The most jarring examples of this are "Side with the Seeds" and "Shake It Off."
The album version of "Impossible Germany" replaces the quiet bombast that concert-goers remember with predictable studio guitar shredding. Fortunately, the band has a liberal bootlegging policy whereby tons of free live material, including the entire Calgary performance, can be found on music sharing torrents sites (such as http://etree.org/).
Despite Cline’s chops, there are a couple of noteworthy highlights. "You Are My Face" contains beautifully subtle non sequitur verses like, "Trying to be thankful/ Our stories fit into phones/ Our voices lift so easily/ A gift given accidentally/ when we’re not sure we’re not alone." Tweedy’s whispering vocals on "Sky Blue Sky" are as haunting as ever. The closer, "On and On and On," is worth the wait as it chugs along with the steadiness of a Chicago "el" train.
Wilco fans who have pored over the oblique musical arrangements and cryptic poetry of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born will find that Sky Blue Sky offers very little reward beyond the literal interpretation of the songs. Others may be happy to once again hear a cheerful, clear-headed Jeff Tweedy.
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