Jeff Tweedy – Love Is The King – Album Review
by Killian Laher

The title of Tweedy’s 2018 album Warm summed him up as a solo proposition.  That’s what he does, warm, acoustic music that’s the aural equivalent of a cosy hug.  This one is a perfectly sundappled collection.  It opens with the steady guitar plucking of the title track, which stutters along agreeably for three minutes before a beautifully discordant acoustic guitar solo takes the track in another direction.

There’s maximum jauntiness on show for Opaline, belying the bleak imagery of the lyrics (“there’s nothing worse than a hearse driving slow”) and the amiable shuffle A Robin or a Wren.  Elsewhere, shades of the Beatles with a little Dylan thrown in on agreeable strums Gwendolyn and Natural Disaster.  Guess Again is a bit Wilco by numbers… except it’s Tweedy… but the point still holds true.

The more stripped-down material is more satisfying.  The uncertain guitar unfolding of Bad Day Lately is a pleasantly brooding piece of music.  Even I Can See could be a bit mushy in other hands (“I’ll tell you about my wife and what she means to me”) but it’s rescued by some acoustic guitar work which is both melodic and a little off-kilter at the same time.

The drowsy, draggy (in a good way) Troubled has some really fine understated guitar work.  Half-Asleep, far from its title, builds and builds to a rousing coda and is sure to make you want to hit play on the album again.

It’s a bit like a Wilco album done on acoustic (mostly) guitars, which shouldn’t work but it DOES.  Jeff Tweedy’s solo albums are, in their own way, as strong as the Wilco albums.

Track List:
1. Love Is The King
2. Opaline
3. A Robin Or A Wren
4. Gwendolyn
5. Bad Day Lately
6. Even I Can See
7. Natural Disaster
8. Save It For Me
9. Guess Again
10. Troubled
11. Half Asleep

Gwendolyn