Wilco—Hot Sun Cool Shroud (2025)
A 6-track summer EP released in Winter, reviewed in Spring. Go figure.
This not-quite-LP, not-quite-EP finds Wilco in shimmering, summery form, full of tunes and colourful energy. Perfect that it initially arrived on Blue Monday back in mid January then.
Originally released digitally last summer, they decided to go all out making this nice, with a lurid cover featuring a collage of unicorns, dwarves, fairies, butterflies and rotting summer fruit! Kinda like my kids have attacked a Stone Roses album with a barrage of stickers.
What you get here are 4 “songs” and 2 mad and loose instrumentals, recorded *checks notes* between 2019 and 2023–presumably across various album sessions, with the thematic connective tissue giving them the chance to package this up as a standalone release.
Lead track Hot Sun also features Cate Le Bon, suggesting this was created during the Cousin LP sessions. Goodness me, do her talents know no bounds? She’s not only one of the most compelling female artists of the past 15 years, but has also morphed into one of the go-to producers of recent years. Rightly so. All her projects have a stamp of someone who knows what’s up.
All round this is top quality stuff. Lead track Hot Sun is one of their best singles in some time, giving off a relaxed vibe that finds the band in a rich vein of form. Having seen them live back in 2023, I can confirm they’re still on top form. You might have opinions about when their peak was, but honestly, they keep on delivering in a way other bands of their vintage have rarely ever done.
Track 2 Livid sounds like Nels Cline fannying around, having a total blast, and the band just going with it. One to scare your children with, then. Elsewhere, Ice Cream takes the low road, with a sumptuous ballad, the sort that works so perfectly with Jeff Tweedy’s world weary croon.
The second of the obvious ‘singles’ off this set is Annihilation. You wonder when you hear an instant classic like this why it wasn’t a radio hit. It’s that good. They do these kinds of songs so effortlessly, and the production is just perfect. After the second bonkers instrumental of Inside The Bell Bones the set is rounded off with another smooth mid tempo crooner, in Say You Love Me.
30 years in, they keep on delivering, and are also at the stage where their classic albums are celebrating major anniversaries, meaning big deluxe box sets aplenty. Most recently: the gargantuan A Ghost Is Born box, probably my all-time favourite of theirs. What’s yours?
