![]() The album settles at this point into a state of general excellence, unmolested by the extra-musical groping of guitars played in violent interruption of melody and structure. Its slow acoustic procession picks up with catchy chorus swells of dulcimer and organ. "Company in My Back" is a poem of I know not what, except the inescapable physical presence of a lover. So long as the music doesn't disappear entirely, these nudging poem-songs of everyday desperation deliver just the thing-if your thing is aching beauty. There is no bickering with the quiet, seat-shifting of a Wilco song when it's balanced with the band's courageously soft-spoken music. Two other standout tracks quickly follow: "Handshake Drugs," a beautiful, prosaic rainy-day account of the drug-buying ritual. One result of the band's experimentation in other realms is that its few quintessential songs come off with a fuzzy freshness that saves them from ever seeming like just another genre episode. At track 5 the album shifts, with possibly its best song, a fine back-porcher with boisterous piano, hammer dulcimer, and, finally with exquisite musical momentum, viola and a kazoo riding out the well-controlled rumpus. ![]() The first tracks alternate between pulling you close with Tweedy's whispered pillow talk and banging your head with growling guitar solos for which your car stereo must be cranked and the windows opened to let the angst escape. Released a few weeks ago, Ghost accomplishes everything it sets out to do, which unfortunately (though perhaps necessarily) includes annoying the listener. With its latest album, A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch), Wilco once again proves itself worthy of all the attention and hand-wringing. Most of all they reveal the fickle side of the tormented Jeff Tweedy as he falls in and out of love with a series of collaborators and band members. Both proceeded with the band's full cooperation, and both are unusually revealing documents of what the band is like and how they make music. This year saw the publication of Learning to Die (Broadway Books) by music critic Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune. Last year saw the release of a documentary by musician/Wilco fan Sam Jones, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, on the making of the band's critical and commercially successful 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The band's rise from the remains of pioneering alt-country fave Uncle Tupelo has been obsessively followed by fans and journalists. Wilco's ups and down have become the most compelling rock-n-roll narrative since the demise of grunge. Despite this, they are more popular than ever and leadman/songwriter Jeff Tweedy's unwillingness to restrain his own varied musical instincts has made him a cause celebre of the rocknoscenti. ![]() As the band's sound has absorbed ever more punk and electronic layering over its alt-country foundation, they have parted ways with a series of musicians and a record label, and pissed off many fans in the bargain. What's made them so is a combination of serious musical ambition and a ready supply of conflict. WILCO is not the most successful American rock band working today, only the most storied. ![]()
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