Many Wilco albums after 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot have tried to dissipate the seriousness and importance piled upon the Americana band by fans and critics, and the most recent, 2015’s Star Wars and 2016’s Schmilco, have waved off importance even via their titles.
Ode to Joy isn’t quite like that, as it’s named after Ludwig van Beethoven’s very famous and augmented adaptation of Friedrich Schiller’s poem into the fourth movement of his Ninth Symphony. It’s also a continuation of Wilco’s roiling of imminent threats and storms into deceptively pastoral folk and rock.
The opening track, “Bright Leaves,” begins with Glenn Kotche establishing a beat not unlike the limping march of a soldier returning wearily home, and frontman Jeff Tweedy murmurs an echo of the weariness. Everyone else seems to slowly drift in around the drums and voice but never imposes too much on them.
In the 10 songs that follow the opener, Wilco’s personnel huddle together, not necessarily to shut out the rest of the world; they just want to tune into each other’s thoughts as softly as they can. The louder moments—for example, Nels Cline’s colorfully compact guitar solo, worthy of George Harrison, in the midst of the brisk “Everyone Hides”—surface like sudden laughter and recede as quickly.
Pleasures, however, do accumulate and linger. “Love Is Everywhere (Beware)” maturely and wistfully resembles the rollicking early days of Wilco, “Citizens” rolls lopsidedly on a rhythm and melody that might have been borrowed from Abbey Road’s second side, and “Quiet Amplifier” is nearly six minutes of clouds darkening.
Throughout Ode to Joy, Wilco thinks and plays restlessly, and the closer, “An Empty Corner,” is a strummed and croaked ballad that is more embers than sparks. Yet the glow takes a long time to fade, and the band retains a sense of purpose rather than seriousness, of artistry rather than importance.
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