Since it has become fashionable to derisively refer to
Wilco's music as "Dad Rock," it seems fitting that
Jeff Tweedy would cleverly point to his own dadness by making an album with one of his sons.
Sukierae, credited to
Tweedy, features Spencer Tweedy,
Jeff's 18-year-old son, on drums and percussion, while the rest of the instruments (except for some keyboards and backing vocals) are handled by
Jeff. This father and son bonding comes at a difficult time in their personal lives, as Susan Miller Tweedy --
Jeff's wife and Spencer's mom -- was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in early 2014. None of the songs on
Sukierae deal directly with this sort of familial crisis, but there's a note of struggle and hope in songs like "Wait for Love" and "Nobody Dies Anymore," while the opening lines of "New Moon" -- "Well, I've always been certain nearly all of my life/One day I'd be your burden and you would be my wife" -- clearly refer to the ways time and circumstance can change the balance of a relationship. But whatever the literal or metaphorical meaning of the lyrics on
Sukierae, musically this album finds
Jeff Tweedy stepping away from the grand-scale sound of
Wilco for a set of songs that feel significantly more intimate and personal. Spencer's drumming certainly makes a difference; his style is solid but with an exploratory bent, sometimes throwing in rhythms and fills that recall hip-hop beats while elsewhere bringing out slightly prog-like colors on the toms and cymbals, and if he's not as precise as
Wilco's
Glenn Kotche, his percussion (which is played up strong in the mix) gives this music an organic sound that fits the songs well. As for
Jeff, he's never been a virtuoso guitarist, but on
Sukierae he gives himself more room to explore on his instruments than he has since his work with the side project
Loose Fur, and his instrumental work, elemental but atmospheric, cuts to the core of these melodies, which are frequently downbeat but also quite beautiful. In their own low-key way, these songs sound like
Jeff Tweedy's most passionate, heartfelt work since
Wilco's
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and
Sukierae is a powerful, emotionally naked work that gives him a chance to do things he likely couldn't have made work quite so well with his band. And if this is Dad Rock … well, sometimes dads have stories worth hearing, and
Sukierae shows that
Jeff Tweedy more than qualifies. ~ Mark Deming