The largely positive reception of Wilco’s The Whole Love, and its respectable sales just a few days after its release (it holds the number two spot on iTunes, just behind Adele’s 21), seems to indicate what may be a temptation in recent years to grade the veteran indie group on a kind of sliding scale. This may be in part because of their prolific career — they have put out albums on a semi-regular basis, after all, for the last 16 years, not counting live recordings. To be fair, none of their records are glaringly deficient in any way, and this remains true of The Whole Love. As their eighth studio album in a long string of commercial successes, it maintains elements of their tried and true formula of experimental pop soundscapes a la the last decade while also largely continuing their recent revisiting of the alt-country simplicity of their earlier days.

Instrumentally, The Whole Love weaves together a characteristically rich tapestry of percussion, led by Glenn Kotche (who stands in for the rhythm section of a small orchestra), with layers of melancholic depth at times, gratifying crunch at others (e.g. the guitar-driven “Born Alone” or “Standing O”). But in the light the group’s sonic dexterity occasionally outshines the record as a whole, holding up better as an end in and of itself rather than the foundation for a cohesive oeuvre like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Some of the tracks plod along unassumingly while others fall into adult-alternative jam bandish routine. Tweedy’s lyrics are hit or miss, ranging from solid songcraft to whimsical one-offs to, at worst, less than profound non-sequiturs to the above formula. (In a recent interview with the CBC he explains how parts of the songwriting process follow a music-first, lyrics-to-order model. The effect can be organic or in some cases forgettable, as with the album’s first single, “I Might,” which appears to fit this mold.)

Still the album isn’t bad and even has its moments, from mellifluous nods to their alt-country rock roots (“Black Moon,” “Open Mind,” or the album’s title track) to the occasional kicker. Overall The Whole Love is autumnal and innocuous–much like Tweedy and co, but also kind of like a pumpkin spice latte. Somehow, one always remembers as them being better; and yet, we perennially find some strange comfort in sucking them down like candy!

3 / 5 bars

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Wilco – I Might by antirecords