(Nonesuch)
The last time Cardinal Arts spoke to Jeff Tweedy was two Novembers ago, after a particularly scorching concert at the Barrymore Theatre. One of the highlights was a simple but utterly affecting ballad with the chorus \I've got reservations/but not about you."" Tweedy confirmed that the song was indeed called ""Reservations,"" and that it would be on the new album, which ""should be out sometime next spring.""
Right. The troubles that have plagued Wilco's fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, have been well-documented over the past year and a half, but finally YHF is more than just a promise of a great album'it is that great, and more.
From the cryptic opening words ""I am an American aquarium drinker"" to the final ""not about you"" of ""Reservations"" (since transformed into a orchestral masterpiece of creaking chairs, digital bleeps and swirling reverb), YHF is an intense and schizophrenic listen that goes from heartbreaking to hopeful and back again in a quick swipe of a Moog.
Wilco used to spend entire albums examining relationships, but never as successfully as YHF's first track. Within the seven minutes of ""I Am Trying To Break Your Heart,"" Tweedy struggles with romantic confusion in real time, fighting with both clich?? (""I want to glide through those brown eyes dreaming/Take you from the inside, baby, hold on tight"") and depreciative expectation (""Let's forget about the tongue-tied lightning/Let's undress just like cross-eyed strangers"") before arriving at the realization of the title's wrenching sentiment, just before the song explodes into a pounding piano and the dynamite drumming of newcomer Glenn Kotche.
After that, YHF quiets down a bit, but Tweedy is just as insightful and articulate in the chambered settings of songs like ""Jesus, Etc"" (""You were right about the stars/Each one is a setting sun"") and ""Ashes of American Flags,"" a harrowingly sympathetic dissertation that takes off from a mundane visit to an ATM to observations on the scope of ""I wonder why we listen to poets/when nobody gives a fuck"" to personal breakdowns like ""I shake like a toothache when I hear myself sing.""
Upbeat to the point of seeming somewhat out of place, ""Heavy Metal Drummer"" and ""I'm The Man Who Loves You,"" long staples of Tweedy's solo repertoire, emerge on YHF as exercises in '70s FM rock, praising the virtues singing along to KISS, driven by sharp drumming, piano riffs and shredding guitar. Bookended by the rest of YHF, they seem a bit simple, but by any other yardstick, they are perfect American summer soundtracks, and they go a long way keeping the album from collapsing under its own weight.
There's no way around the fact that YHF owes much of its success to the transition of Tweedy from lead singer to unchecked visionary. Perfectly paced, he treads a very narrow path between confessional and psychotic, just barely held together by the variety of his emotions, rounding out an album that feels neither forced nor loose. A personal statement akin to Blood On The Tracks and a conceptual achievement as grand as OK Computer, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the best album you're likely to hear for a long time. Buy it and thank God that you got the chance to.
