Pitchfork

There are two kinds of supergroups: Those who embrace the term and those who don't, and the distinction is still better than a partially popped collar for telling 'bags from bros. In the self-proclaimed supercorner, you've got blue-fingered false prophets like Cream and twiddly sex-comedy fodder like Asia-- groups ultimately gibbeted on their own dead seriousness, man. More common, however, are all-star bands like the Traveling Wilburys, which take a friendly, beer-oriented approach antithetical to any presumptions of superness.

Predictably, Midwest veterans Golden Smog fall into the latter camp, with casual backyard-barbecue Americana that's either late for the Fourth of July or early for Labor Day. The band originally comprised Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, Jayhawks co-founders Gary Louris and Marc Perlman, Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy, and sometime Jayhawk accompanist Kraig Johnson (also a member of Run Westy Run, Iffy and the Program). After a 1992 covers EP, the group garnered attention for 1995 country-rock full-length Down by the Old Mainstream, an earthy excursion into nasal twang, soused guitar solos and plains-state heartache. "She don't have to see you to see through you," Tweedy groans on a cover of little-known Texas soul singer Bobby Paterson. 1998's Weird Tales continued the group's alt-country trajectory, to more modest acclaim.

Cool, but that was eight years ago. In the meantime, the Jayhawks broke up, Soul Asylum lost founding bassist Karl Mueller to cancer, and Wilco, well, you read Pitchfork, right? Another Fine Day finds Golden Smog joining the present decade's post-alt-country migration and settling in as deans of loose, sweaty dad-rock, which as ruts go is as cozy as a sofa-cushion ass groove on 24 night-- not hating! The sound is still loose, but tends toward Badfinger's "Hey Jude"-styled anthem-pop and the Band's ragged harmonies more than Woody Guthrie folksiness or god-fearing Louvin Brothers Appalachia. Dudes haven't mellowed, exactly, so much as grown a little too comfortable, but Another Fine Day offsets some of what it lacks in freshness with aw heck poker-night camaraderie.

Like previous Golden Smog efforts, which can veer from cutesty Tweedy throwaway "Pecan Pie" to Johnson slide-guitar mini-epic "Yesterday Cried", Another Fine Day is a typically schizophrenic all-star side project. The tuneful title track and sprawling, Guess Who-vamping "Beautiful Mind" show flashes of Wilco's recent abstraction, while "Corvette" charges into Cheap Trick power-pop shortly after "5-22-02" incorporates horns and an Abbey Road guitar solo. Murphy's blues-based "Hurricane" is a fiery barroom singalong. Muni Loco, wife of producer Paco Loco, sings on banjo-twinkled "Cure for This", which would have fit on the recent Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs '60s covers album. Speaking of covers, Louris and Tweedy tear through an organ-fueled duet on the Kinks' Dave Davies' touching "Strangers", one of the album's highlights.

Another Fine Day is not called Another Super Fine Day. In other words, its creators didn't destine it to be an emetic pile of self-important suck. Still, its midtempo classic-rock radio chug tires; its lyrics are occasionally silly, as in "surprise, surprise, everyone dies," from Louris/Tweedy flamenco-tinged Western waltz "Listen Joe". However, the relaxed spirit of the album's predecessors remains, even as the sound has grown a little bit more rock'n'roll. Non-supergroup supergroups at least aren't likely collar-poppers, but that doesn't mean they're always perversely super; sometimes strangely fine is enough for family fun. Yes, dads included.