'Wilco (The Album)' is among new CD releases

Wilco, 'Wilco (The Album)'

Wilco, the veteran Americana-rock band from Chicago, is renowned for its stubbornly progressive aesthetic. With their seventh album, the six-man crew allows themselves a look back. The entire package is bound by a sense of retrospective: from the album title, "Wilco (The Album)," the album opener, "Wilco (The Song)" and its lyrics — "Are the times getting tough? / Is the road you travel rough? / Wilco will love you baby" — and the breezy, '70s-FM radio ease of the music within arises the confidence of a band comfortable in its mission. For this particular band, comfort instigates a compelling contradiction — the need to stay hungry, to keep an edge, countered by the nesting instinct to settle into finely crafted, lived-in songs. What we get on "Wilco (The Album)" (out today on Nonesuch Records) is user-friendly and middle-of-the-road, but also poignant and precise. What Wilco has lost in unpredictability, it's gained in proficiency.

Perhaps they've taken note of the younger generation's predilections. Up-and-comers like Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear — bands who have opened for Wilco over the last 18 months — look to mellow-minded forebears like Crosby, Stills and Nash, George Harrison, and Neil Young for inspiration. Here, for the first time, Wilco does, too.

"(The Album)" isn't all flashback, however. Bandleader Jeff Tweedy's lyrics are immediate and ambivalent, his voice quietly stoic. Guitarist Nels Cline shifts from melodic to dissonant without warning. Melodic tension never suffers from accessibility. If this is the sound of settling, maybe growing up ain't so bad.

Jonathan Zwickel,

Special to The Seattle Times

Also out today

"The Woodstock Experience," 10-CD, 40th-anniversary boxed set with the performances of Santana, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, Johnny Winter and Jefferson Airplane (Sony Legacy)

The Builders and the Butchers, "Salvation Is a Deep Dark Well" (Gigantic)

Brad Paisley, "American Saturday Night" (RCA)

Jeremih, "Jeremih" (Def Jam)

Rob Thomas, "Cradlesong" (Atlantic)