The Wake

Sky Blue Sky

The kings of America’s alternative music scene are back. Often heralded as the state’s only answer to Radiohead, these six fellas from Chicago had grown increasingly loud and experimental on their last two studio albums. Both albums, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born, were met with the loudest of critical acclaim and fan adoration. Then with the 2005’s live release, Kicking Television, Wilco proved themselves an onstage juggernaut, popping eardrums and blowing indie minds nationwide. On Sky Blue Sky, the band is taking a step back; re-embracing their alt-country roots and often electing to turn down their amps, even if only a notch or two. The album numbers 12 in pristinely crafted, jammed-out, traditional stLiterary meet soaring, psychedelic middle-to-ends, and clocks in at just over 51 minutes.

Now when you hear that the new Wilco album is, “turned down,” “softened,” or “understated,” remember these comments are made comparatively within their own catalogue; other bands surely uninvolved. Louder than anything ever defined as country, and, at times, as rocking as anything you’ll discover this summer, it’s well worth any curious music fan’s time. The sixth track of the album, “Shake It Off,” is a perfect example of the bands dreary, front porch sitting strums evolving into a genre-hopping explosion. It creeps timidly forward for the first minute thirty, suddenly mounts to a bouncy, Little Feat stompin’ jam. Another minute and half -later, the mood drops to a provocative, dark-side keys interlude, before bursting into a classic spell of stop and start rock. Three minute opener, the sweetly building “Either Way,” sways and ponders while front man Jeff Tweedy’s typically tormented lyrics venture to the realm of optimistic. Next is, “You Are My Face,” an ultimately harrowing, though initially assured, Wilco jem. The bending keys give way to pounding piano as the mood changes, prompting a thoughtfully dark, then eerily screeching guitar solo from the group’s newest addition, the prodigious Nels Cline. The six minute clocking, “Impossible Germany,” is as good of a time as it was for your 5th grade presidential fitness mile. A rolling piano fused with single note perfection for the first half drifts lazily into a second half of Tweedy/Cline guitar interplay showcasing mastery in their unique class.