Wilco: The Whole Love

Label: Anti-

Just another typical Wilco album. By which, of course, I mean a two-record sprawl that encompasses so many forms of pop -- rootsy, alternative (whatever that means), orchestrated and borderline experimental -- that in 2011, the best way to describe it is: just another typical Wilco album. Another unsurprising Wilco move is to begin an album with a long, impenetrable opus, such as "Art of Almost," which is structured like a piece of classical music, passages tied together like movements. While such a song is undeniably Wilco-esque, so is the burst-of-clarity tune, the kind that so often follow longer, more difficult pieces: "I Might," the crisp single from The Whole Love, does the trick here, a percussive gem that makes an excellent hook out of a brief organ flourish. Lovely slow ballads are another Jeff Tweedy specialty, and "Open Mind" comes on like a familiar friend; it's followed yet still another hallmark of this band's sound, the gleeful slight bounce of "Capitol City." If it sounds like I'm saying that you've heard all this before, well, the other thing -- which you already know -- is that Wilco is a band of peerless craftsmen with a solid grip on their place in the so-called music biz. Which is why The Whole Love is what you need right now, and nothing less.