Wilco Plays the Arlington, with Abandon and Focus

Chicago-born band Wilco is, by many standards and in the opinion of many of us, one of the few extant examples of a “Great American Band.” No small part of that accolade has to do with the very “band-ness” of the operation. 

Yes, the glowing and sometimes slightly growling centerpiece is Jeff Tweedy, whose songwriting and fluidly changing voice remain the heart, soul, and restless brain machine of Wilco. Even so, the contributions of his band members are what makes the whole sing so engagingly. 

That group-minded ethic is once again abundantly clear on the band’s new, evocative, and 13th album, Cousin. No doubt, the group-think character will also be an important part of Wilco’s upcoming local performance, next Friday, October 13, at the Arlington Theatre.

Part of the freshening-up of the Wilco sound is thanks to a creative vital set of outside ears, that of Welsh producer Cate Le Bon — the first outside producer for a Wilco album since the band’s epochal classic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, from 2002. We get a sense of something new afoot from the opening track, “Infinite Surprise,” on which the hypnotic simplicity of Tweedy’s melodic and lyrical design is treated with a painterly wash of sounds from the band — especially from Nels Cline’s ethereal electric-guitar atmospherics.

Elsewhere on the album, unusual textures and production touches keep what could be straighter rock and country/folk-tinged songs in the realm of, well, elements of surprise. For one, drummer Glenn Kotche imparts his inventive drum parts on the mesmeric electro-organic “Sunlight Ends” and the overall album palette welcomes unconventional colorations of keyboardists Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen (an Ojai resident, incidentally), with the lithe lines of bassist John Stirratt in the cracks and foundations. 

But the band can kick out jams in a more visceral way, as well: Check out the Stones-y wallop of the title track “Cousin” (Stones-y but with a tweaked sonic palette) and the closing love affirmative “Meant to Be” tethered to a post–Magnificent Seven–ish chugging fervor. “Evicted” proceeds with a strange, lush glam-pop sound wardrobing as Tweedy bemoans a love lost: “I’m evicted from your heart / I deserve it.”

Tweedy has explained that the “cousin” reference on the album alludes to his sense of being both related to the world and humanity, but in a once-removed way. Further, he links the situation to a cautious solidarity, of we humans being “in this together,” while also in our own ways. 

That paradox also loops back to Wilco’s unique role in the bigger picture of rock culture. They rock, in visceral and infectious ways, but they also assert their restless creative being through relatively infinite surprises. —Josef Woodard

Wilco plays Friday, October 13, 7:30 p.m. at the Arlington Theatre (1317 State St.). See arlingtontheatresb.com.