A RISKY BEAUTY
WILCO WALKS ARTISTIC TIGHTROPE TO PRODUCE ...
BY JOSHUA OSTROFF, OTTAWA SUN
* 03/14/99
The Ottawa Sun
(c) Copyright 1999 The Ottawa Sun. All Rights Reserved.
SUMMER TEETH
WILCO
Sun Rating:
3 1/2 out of 5
* THERE ARE few oxymorons more glaring than alternative country. Except
* maybe the term "No Depression" to describe a country music movement.
Interestingly, both these epithets were designed to describe the
sounds of Wilco (and its precursor band Uncle Tupelo) and their
nonsensical quality is even more appropriate on the group's latest
offering Summer Teeth.
Coming on the heels of their great collaboration with Billy Bragg
* (Mermaid Avenue), this country-rock album sounds like nothing coming
out
* of either country or rock, driving down more unexplored avenues than
ever before while still maintaining links to contemporaries like Son
Volt and Vic Chesnutt.
From the piano-fuelled rave-up of the opening cut Can't Stand It to
the murder balladry of Via Chicago ("I dreamed about killing you last
night/and it felt alright to me"), the record combines traditional
rural
song structures with contemporary quirkiness, e-bow guitars with
synthesizers and atmospheric textures with timeless melodies.
While the record never quite attains the artistic heights it hints
at, occasionally exhibiting creative laziness or unwieldy sonic
messiness, the self-produced Summer Teeth remains a risky beauty that
should spark wake-up calls in both Nashville and New York.
