Wilco

Wilco’s latest album could be called mellow, earthen or even a return to the band’s folksy roots. But call it what it is: boring. A self-confessed Jeff Tweedy junkie, even I can’t get a fix with Sky Blue Sky. Yes, there are classic Wilco songs that make the album worth owning for the completists. “Hate It Here” has the mopy narrator washing dishes at home to forget his missing muse. And there’s “What Light,” a ’70s Beatle-esque tribute to endless hope. Yet too many of the tracks like “Shake It Off” and “Side With the Seeds” fall into a trap of Nels Cline’s manic guitar solos before returning to an unimaginative chorus. The chirps and beeps of 2001’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot are gone, along with the more cryptic lyrics like “I’m a cherry-ghost” from the band’s previous studio release, A Ghost Is Born. What’s left is a collection of organic songs that aren’t great or awful, they’re just forgettable. For Wilco, that’s new territory.