WILCO
BY WILLIAM LENNON
Wilco has been masterfully walking the razor’s edge between consistency and experimentalism for over a decade now. The fabled Chicago indie country band comes off as having a practiced, mellow competence, even when their music is manic and skittering. Their sound isn’t chaotic per se, but it’s nimble and unpredictable enough to make you feel like it is. They may make it look easy, but it’s hard to think of a band more perfectly self-actualized. They seem so comfortable in who they are, where they’re from and what people expect from them that their identity becomes clearly encoded within every note. Even when their music breaks new ground, it’s easy to tell you’re listening to a Wilco song well before Jeff Tweedy starts to sing.
