A deep dive into Wilco, especially “Cruel Country” (2022) and “Cousin” (2023)

Since I had fallen behind in collecting albums by Wilco and hadn't listened to them much recently, I picked up their two most recent ones, "Cruel Country" (2022) and "Cousin" (2023), and listened to their whole studio catalogue in order. From about 2005 to 2015, I listened to their first eight albums a lot, so those were all familiar old friends, with "Hummingbird" from "A Ghost Is Born" (2004) still being my favorite Wilco song. On the two newest albums, I particilarly like "Many Worlds" from "Cruel Country" as it stretches a small fragment of text out into seven minutes and fifty-three seconds of a lovely, textured instrumental crescendo and dimuendo. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 4 June 2024)