Wilco
The Whole Love

LA RECENSIONE

If we remove the acidic electrogenesis and the hypnotic progression and the acidic sounds and the tightening rhythms and the synths that drip in the background and Jeff Tweedy's voice that levels the acidic content and the final solo that picks up rock-and-roll speed and grows and grows and grows from "Art Of Almost".

If we remove the elephant-like fun rhythm and the highly compressed bass and the seventies keyboards and the cheerful glockenspiel that pops up here and there and the guitar riffs by Nels Cline from "I Might".

If we remove the pitch black americana and the arpeggios that get lost on the edges of the strings and the electric guitar that elongates and shortens in fantastic laments and the skin-crawling lyrics of "Black Moon".

If we remove the melody, of an exhausting cheerfulness, from "Born Alone", not realizing that Tweedy guides it by the hand to a leg-breaking finale ("I was born to die alone") and transforms the cheerfulness into something unsettling, in a fade-out crescendo.

If we remove the country epicness and its melancholic charge from "Open Mind" and the image of Wilco standing on a street while they play space-fifties marches to the movements of "Capitol City", strictly live, while bike bells ring, and horns honk, and church bells chime the hours, or who knows what else.

Or if we remove the speed and the high-wire rock-and-roll charge and the jump-inducing chorus and the clapclap and the damn catchy hook of "Standing O" or, worse still, the Beatle-esque ghosts of the title track.

If we remove all this, there is nothing else left but a pop album from Mars.