Since 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, Wilco has settled into a more straightforward musical style defined by stripped-back, acoustic instrumentation and Jeff Tweedy’s confessional songwriting. The band’s latest, Cousin, seeks to fold Tweedy and company’s past into their present, exploring a more experimental and messy sound than their other recent releases.
This is due in no small part to Cate Le Bon’s varied production style. Cousin opens with the dense “Infinite Surprise,” whose main melodic hook is buried within layers of guitars, feedback, synths, and cacophonous strings. Tweedy’s vocals sound frailer than usual, almost frightened, which complements the track’s unsettling atmosphere. It’s perhaps the grandest opening statement to any Wilco album since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.”
The following track, “Ten Dead,” is a surreal slow-burner whose gentle verses are punctuated by chilling orchestral swells that act like connective tissue between the song’s various sections. Tweedy, sounding every bit a man of 56, leans into the complexities of his maturing voice, lending the song, and most of the rest of the album, a potent weariness.
The band doesn’t completely abandon the sound they’ve adopted over the last decade. Tracks like “Levee,” “Evicted,” and “Soldier Child” exude the easygoing alt-country style that define recent Wilco albums like 2019’s Ode to Joy. And though these tracks are perfectly adequate, even pretty (especially the vocal melodies on “Evicted”), it’s disappointing to see the band play it safe on an album that aims to be their most adventurous in years.
Of course, the band proves that they can still write pensive ballads without succumbing to the clichés of contemporary indie music. The fingerpicked guitars and relaxed arrangement of “Pittsburgh” are smartly contrasted with stabs of heavily manipulated keyboards and an off-kilter drumbeat. The song, which develops wonderfully as Tweedy lowers his voice to a near whisper, culminates in what sounds like a cinematic funeral march. But not every experiment Wilco attempts here is as rewarding: “Sunlight Ends” features a shuffling electronic beat but is so subdued that it hardly registers when sandwiched between Cousin’s more emotive tracks.
As the approachable stepdads of indie rock, Tweedy and his bandmates could have easily rested on their laurels. So it’s heartening to hear them, almost 30 years into their career, still trying to nudge their sound in new directions, albeit not as cohesively as they once did.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
Quote from Tweedy in Aquarium Drunkard interview ‘ It’s [Cousin] pretty sculpted art pop. It’s alien. The songs are alien shapes, maybe what people think of when they think of the element in Wilco that is “experimental” or something like that…I think that other record [Cousin] is gonna blow people’s minds. I’m really, really excited about putting it out. But Cruel Country just felt like the right thing to do right now’
Not sure Cate Le Bon got the ‘mind-blowing’ brief. I preordered Cousin based on feedback such as this (i.e. ‘experimental’). The last truly experimental album was 2015’s Star Wars – which certainly divided fans. Since then, each album has sort of shuffled along…albeit with stoic gait. I guess this is what happens with age, and no drugs…