Pitchfork

After parting ways with Uncle Tupelo partner Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy's first step was an unsteady one-- Wilco's A.M., like a nervous houseguest fidgeting to get comfortable on the couch, never found its vibe. Farrar, on the other hand, with Son Volt, confidently assumed his position as Americana's standard bearer. Things soon changed, however, as 1996's sprawling and ambitious Being There saw Wilco reimagining themselves as rock 'n' roll revivalists with a drunken swagger, and winning the hearts of Uncle Tupelo fans and critics the world over-- Son Volt, meanwhile, stagnated on 1997's Straightaways which, while not a bad record by any stretch, failed to innovate quite like Wilco had. The tide had turned, and Wilco found themselves unexpectedly on top.

In 1998, Wilco teamed with British folkie Billy Bragg for Mermaid Avenue, a collection of Woody Guthrie lyrics paired with original music by the collaborating artists. Wilco lent a suitable Midwestern sensibility to the project, but with Guthrie putting the words in his mouth, Tweedy had yet to beat the biggest knock against him. By now, it was obvious that he had a knack for crafting instantly memorable melodies; the question was: what did he have to say?

Just as the Velvets' swan song, Loaded, was packed with hit songs for critics who claimed Lou Reed was incapable of writing them, so too is Summer Teeth Jeff Tweedy's statement of purpose. The album, a loose song cycle considering the intermingling of perception, communication and reality, and its affect on our relationships, witnesses the band dismissing its country-rock sound for a studio sheen that would make Brian Wilson proud. Drawing on the pop music of their late 60s and early 70s youths, the band members have crafted a collection of immediately infectious and consistently stunning melodies with complex, layered arrangements. With the band having jettisoned Max Johnston and his dobro, fiddle and mandolin, Summer Teeth's songs are driven not by rustic guitar licks, but rather by Jay Bennett's grand organ fills and ever-present harmonies, which paint the album in Technicolor.

Undermining this sticky-sweet pop party in a delicious irony, and ultimately supplying Summer Teeth with its depth and success, is Tweedy's dark contemplation. The intrigue begins quickly on the album's opener, "Can't Stand It", which finds our narrator lamenting the end of a relationship over a pop-soul ditty punctuated by bells. As the source of the narrator's frustration crystallizes on his own fickle emotions, Tweedy plants the seeds of mistrust, warning of "speakers speaking in code."

As the album racks up false realizations, startling confessions, and outright lies, listeners find themselves exchanging suspicious glances with their guides. Where "Pieholden Suite" dupes a sleeping lover, the frail "We're Just Friends" finds Tweedy lying only to himself. Similarly, the singer's resolve on the jubilant would-be self-help anthem "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway(again)" is plastered like a forced smile, and cracks like, "I'm a bomb, regardless," scar the façade. In fact, during the album's first half, only the overtly sarcastic "How to Fight Loneliness" is what it seems.

The album's confusion climaxes during its keystone, the majestic "Via Chicago", and its counterpart "ELT". On the former, a scorned lover stews, "I dreamed about killing you again last night/ And it felt alright with me." Then, a couplet of unsettling stream-of-consciousness lyrics give way to Tweedy as he tears into a disturbingly deliberate, off-key guitar riff that might very well be the musical moment of 1999. Interestingly, the celebratory "ELT" finds our sad psychopath repented and healed: "Oh, what have I been missing/ Wishing, wishing that you were dead." Taken on its merits, the song is almost unimaginatively sincere, but in context, it becomes enigmatic. As the narrator shuffles his story for our approval, which spin are we to believe? Brilliantly, the album leaves such questions unanswered.

As Tweedy removes his trickster mask for "My Darling", a spare lullaby to his young son, the mood of the album emerges, but Summer Teeth's transformation is most apparent in its two recitals of "A Shot in the Arm". Amidst the incertitude of the album's twilight opening, its chorus, "Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm/ Something in my veins/ Bloodier than blood," seems a ghoulish reference to drug addiction. However, its reprise, on the heels of the Elvis Costello-by-way-of-Phil Spector romp, "Candyfloss", seems to call on an inner strength and the fortitude for self-improvement.

From its opener, in which "our prayers will never be answered again," to "In a Future Age", where Tweedy challenges us to "turn our prayers to outrageous dares," Summer Teeth drags us through our interpersonal garbage, only to politely ask us to pick up after ourselves. Once drawn in by the album's addictive pop hooks, the band ensnares us with clever ironies and rich musical treatments that never let go. As the album admits its intricacies, it's clear that the band is growing exponentially. Having confidently abandoned their alt-country ghosts, Wilco has become a band from which we can expect everything and nothing at all. With Summer Teeth, they've delivered on both counts, crafting an album as wonderfully ambiguous and beautifully uncertain as life itself.