JEFF TWEEDY 

2020 ALT-COUNTRY/AMERICANA FOLK

Love is the King is the fourth album by indie folkster giant Jeff Tweedy, mostly known for his work fronting modern dad rock/folk legends, Wilco. This record is that of comfort and familiarity, themes of those you love and the emotions involved, a by the numbers affair for Mr. Tweedy. The sound consists of Tweedy’s soft vocals, and a base of finely tuned and produced acoustic guitar partnered with the occasional standard percussion, steel pedal, and electric guitar. The lyrics, vague enough for anyone to relate but not specific or compelling to invoke intrigue and predictable verse chorus verse structure, a ballad or two, a mid paced track with added instrumentation and a half-assed attempt at a hook. Tweedy is coloring in between the lines and not particularly well, he studied his whole life for the standardized test and still scored average marks, this is supposed to be a creative endeavour not a 9 to 5 that pops out an album. There are highlights, Opaline is catchy and cute, Tweedy moaning out elongated Os in the chorus are great. Even I Can See starts to get a bit personal and the plucky notes are more captivating but it doesn’t completely pull through. Half-Asleep is a good closer,  the slow pace and reverb laden guitars work well with Tweedy’s tired delivery. He’s on the precipice of memorability but never makes the plunge, and even these moments are rare. On the scale of songwriters venturing to re-explore the styles and themes done so obviously better by other artists, and in this case themselves, this rates about average but this categorization is less than flattering, fit for musicians locked neck deep in their genre’s worst and most stagnant inclinations.