Review Summary: beautifully realized, impeccably written, flawlessly executed.
"Take off your band-aid 'cause i don't believe in touchdowns" sings Jeff Tweedy on "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart." It's a laughably asinine line, teetering along the edges of pretension and elegance. Because that's what Wilco are: pretentious and elegant, shrugged off as "dad-rock" or boundlessly lauded for being one of the most adept and cerebral rock bands in modern music. but what most people agree on is the album singly picked out from wilco's catalogue as their best work,
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Wilco's brand of country/experimental-tinged alt-rock is wholly fresh and simple tunes such as the gorgeous highlight "Radio Cure" are elevated to greater levels of excellence because of swirling synthesizers, ridiculous yet provocative lyricism, and memorable guitar leads. These tunes, in the hands of less-seasoned rockers, could fall short and be lost in the sea of new alternative rock bands. What really brings wilco, and this album to the point of brilliance is Jeff Tweedy's brilliant songwriting abilities, lack of filler, and the uncanny ability to bring life into deceptively simple tunes.
