Everything in limbo: The Americana experimentalists illuminate the cracks in a relationship.
He’d be laughing his ass off if it wasn’t for his life – complained Jeff Tweedy to George Harrison-like guitar in the first single from COUSIN, his Chicago rock band’s 13th album. The reason: “I’m evicted from your heart, I deserve it.” It’s one emotional extreme of a record that measures the space between hope for love and despair in ten concise songs – and is musically and lyrically accessible like few Wilco albums. Works before that.
Just like “Evicted”, “Levee” has a light, summery, somewhat maritime folk rock sound with a subtle psychedelic touch, but doesn’t deal with anything light: “I’d love to take my meds like my doctor said, but I worry if I should ‘t instead let you save me again.” It’s about the fine line between needing each other and exploiting each other.
While Tweedy describes the fleeting nature of the relationship(s) sung about on COUSIN in poetic images in the gently shimmering “Sunlight Ends” (“You dance like the dust in the light where the sun comes in”), he stages it musically in the lively “Soldier Child”. a cross between Roy Orbison and the Velvet Underground of the LOADED phase: “Hold my hand across the table, act like you’re invisible.” In the magnificent last song he even models the euphorically proclaimed “Our Love Is Meant To Be”. into a question. There is no resolution, everything is in limbo.