14 illinoisentertainer. com november 2025
JEFF TWEEDY Twilight Override( dBpm) In the era of the ever-diminishing attention span, a double album would seem like a perilous gambit. A triple album would certainly be out of the question. In fact, only the gutsiest of artists have ever made an attempt at a triple album. George Harrison, fresh out of The Beatles, took a real risk by making his album All Things Must Pass a triple album. Artists like The Magnetic Fields, Prince, and Joanna Newsom all had successful attempts, yet the format of the triple LP set seems more likely to fit live sets, with acts like Grateful Dead( Europe‘ 72) and The Band( The Last Waltz) making a huge impact with it. Jeff Tweedy initially became interested in the idea while on a road trip with his sons, listening to The Clash’ s unwieldy and schizophrenic 3LP set Sandinista. After the dreary trifecta of Wilco’ s 3 album run of Ode To Joy, Cruel Country, and Cousin, Tweedy was looking to record a respite from all that, but unfortunately found the news cycle to be a“ bottomless basket of rock bottom” according to the album’ s press release. Instead of being a two-hour bummer, Twilight Override finds the songwriter turning inward, with a ramshackle, homespun set of tunes that should be a total windfall to the average Tweedy devotee. There is stuff here that should satisfy the day one Uncle Tupelo fan(“ Betrayed”), the psychedelic late 90s Wilco fan(“ Forever Never Ends”), and the current day dark Wilco vibe(“ Throwaway Lines”). The whole thing feels a little less Sandinista and more like Something / Anything, the early Todd Rundgren masterpiece where he plays every instrument and takes the listener on a guided tour through his twisted back pages. Not to say that Jeff is a one-man band here, he is backed by his two sons, Spencer and Sammy, as well as Liam Kazar, Sima Cunningham, Macie Stewart, and James Elkington. There is a noticeable freshness in hearing Jeff with this configuration. Where the past few Wilco albums sounded more like studio creations, these recordings sound more like a living,
breathing band. He feels comfortable enough to try new things here, like the metropolitan euro groove of“ No One ' s Moving On,” which gathers momentum on a slinky bass line and kraut-rock beat. The twee-punk of“ Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” takes the listener back to Jeff’ s shaggy Lounge Axe era, when he was a starving musician starting both a new band and a new family. He flexes his pop muscles with“ Caught Up In The Past,” breezing by on an undeniably handsome chord structure. The real genius card trick here is leaving the lead single“ Enough,” perhaps Tweedy’ s closest thing to a radio hit since Wilco’ s“ Impossible Germany,” to languish as the final song on disc three! The song rolls along on an obvious yet transcendent acoustic riff over which Jeff posits a series of interesting questions to the listener. He then drops a Dylan reference and leaves us with the curious thought,“ It’ s hard to stay in love with everyone.” Don’ t let the gothic black-andwhite album art fool you into thinking Twilight Override is anything like a downer; this is the sound of a legacy act shaking things up and having fun no matter the state of the world. You know what comes after the twilight.
-Andy Derer
8 ROBBIE FULKS Now Then( Compass)
Given the top-flight quality of his writing, virtuosic playing, wit, and singing, how has affable roots-music veteran Robbie Fulks not cracked further into public consciousness? Certainly, those who know know, and some souls possessing good taste have clued in. After all, Fulks has been nominated for Grammy awards and reliably packed the Hideout and FitzGerald ' s in his former hometown of Chicago for years. Nowadays, he ' s in L. A. and more closely surrounded by his industry. Will it help? The performance of his 17th album, Now Then, his first full set of original material written since ditching his snow shovel, may be telling. The work is as strong as ever. The wide-ranging col-