Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

1. Either Way - Very mellow. Good way to ease into a mellow album. The vocals are really dry which sound really cool on Jeff Tweedy's voice. There are some strings on the bridge that get kind of remeniscient of the Beatles on Abbey Road. Totally cool solo that would sound in place on a Steely Dan album. There is a straight Paul McCartney yell in this song, too. Never Compare a band to the Beatles because it's a curse, but it's immediately apparent.

2. You Are My Face - Starts off with a cool harmony under the vocal and you would never guess where it is going. The opening solo is an exact guitar tone from late Beatles. I hate to harp on the Beatles thing, but it sounds great. It's not like I'm comparing it to the Corey Feldman solo album. The first solo section totally reminds me of the jam outro of "At Least That's What You Said" on "A Ghost is Born." This song is written very cool. It's got a cool flow of upbeat and down beat with very smooth transitions. The guitars tear ass on this album. Not in an over the top way, but in a tons of skill way. This guitar solo is one of those perfect guitar solos that Larry Carlton made cool on Aja.

3. Impossibly Germany - Ummmm. All of a sudden the album turned into AM Gold. It's not bad, it's just AM radio heard from a 1970s conversion van. Also, at this point does Wilco have four guitar players? Sweet harmonized guitars behind the solo. It's like Skynyrd on Vicodin and margaritas. God, that sounds awesome.

4. Sky Blue Sky - This IS Americana. This is a quintessential Wilco song that could have been on AM. "The drunks were ricocheting" is an awesome lyric. Tweedy is gifted in the art of song lyricizing. Reverb drenched acoustic guitars and a slow shuffle immediately bring you down to the speed limit if you are in a school zone. This song cruises at 25 mph. It feels like a drag, but if you were feeling sorry for yourself, smoking, drinking whiskey by yourself on a camping trip in a wifebeater, you want this on your playlist.

5. Side With The Seeds - Okay. Done. Abbey Road. I'm calling it. Listen to the first three seconds of this song and then listen to the first three seconds of "Oh Darling." Then, it starts to get a little Don Henley for me, but I guess that's okay. I mean, I'm more of a Glenn Frey fan than a Henley, but I'd be lieing (that's how we are going to spell it from now on) if I said I didn't own that one album that everybody owned with the Axl Rose guest appearance on "I Will Not Go Quietly." Plus, "Dirty Laundry" was almost a tight song. Anyway, this song is cool, but at this point in the album, I'm running a very hot and steamy bath and writing a last will and testament while looking for a New Pornographers album to cheer me up. At least awesome guitar solos keep happening. These dudes are good, I need to find out who they are.

6. Shake It Off - Okay, so it's very cool to build off something so simple in the intro here. That takes skill. Then, it picks up (thank god) and gets a little Steely Danish. Steely Danish sounds like a delicioun't pastry. Sounds like a phased Rhodes electric piano. That and the Clavinet are a couple of my favorite sounds in the world. The chorus is awkward and uncomfortable. I don't think I like it. There's cowbell for the people who didn't get the memo that liking cow bell is super played out. Yeah, the chorus feels forced. I officially don't really like this song. It's yards above anything you hear on the radio, but it's not one of my favorites. It happens. The song just sounds really disjointed.

7. Please Be Patient With Me - This and "Hit The Switch" would have to be featured on my own personal soundtrack. It's touching and deep and revealing. It takes balls to throw your innermost feelings out there the way Jeff Tweedy does, but he is good at it. He always hits on universal themes that most people can immediately relate to. Of course, a lot of it are the feelings that people have when their blinds are shut and they are having a hard time falling asleep on a Wednesday night. Maybe he isn't writing about himself and when that happens to you, you will look up and he will be standing in your closet taking notes on your worries and sadness. God, that would be unsettling if that happened, but kind of funny in hindsight.

8.Hate It Here - A sad, sad song, but very cool. I still don't like how mellow this album is compared to "A Ghost Is Born." Where's the "I'm a Wheel?" Oh, crap. I just figured it out. I think the band has been listening to a bunch of gospel and are clean and sober. We all know what happened to Checy Chase when that happened. It ain't pretty. The chorus...again, Abbey Road. Is this Wilco's Abbey Road? The production is spot on. Also, this copy may be a pre-mastered copy, so it could change. Maybe the dryness will go away by the release date. This album is definitely turning into that album that would be on while you look around your apartment at 3:00 AM with everyone gone or passed out and surveyed your sea of empty beer bottles that you don't want to clean up before you go to bed. If the album could be described with a color, it would be faded Polaroid yellow.

9. Leave Me (Like You Found Me) - I've given up on this album ever picking up in tempo. Music is all about time and place and there is a time and place for this one. If you just got dumped, are siiting in a dark living room drinking yourself blind, then this album will be perfect. It's all totally good, but maybe I just need to rock a bit. Also, it may be my fault. I've been listening to the Ratt discography and that may be tarnishing my audial palette. Skip.

10. Walken - Olde Tymey song. Background music to a guy in a brown suit with a wax moustache walking down the street and whistling music. Again, cool, but not blowing me away right now. It gets better when the guitar gets all ZZ Top and they start riffing a bit. The guitars go nuts in this song in a Little Texas kind of way. One minute of jamming on the way out of this one. Kinda cool.

11. What Light - Bob Dylan-y. It's going to happen on a Wilco album. Ahhhh. It starts to sound like the Eagles. The Dude abides and the Dude doesn't like the Eagles. You can learn a lot from the Dude. Straight AM Gold.

12. On and On and On - At this point, I just need to say that I love Wilco, but after "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and then "A Ghost is Born" the momentum is slowing on their innovativeness. It's okay. Maybe after more listens, this album will grow on me, but the previous two grabbed me immediately and I couldn't wait to hear more. I was even bummed when there were no more songs at the end of a listen. I just wanted more. This one doesn't do that to me. Anyway, this song has a piano line with an organ behind it and very touching lyrics about loss and misunderstanding with a giant hairband drum fill in it. The song then picks up a little bit to try and finish the record on an upbeat, inspirational note. The song is saying "Drain the bathtub and tear up the will you just wrote. Everything is going to be okay."

Album comes out May 15th. If you like Wilco, you kind of have to buy it. If you are not currently into Wilco, work your way up with their back catalog. Don't start with this album. That would be like starting your Poison listening experience with Flesh and Blood.