Wilco have revealed plans to release their twelfth studio album Cruel Country on May 27th and the band have unveiled the 21-track, double-disc project’s lead single “Falling Apart (Right Now).” The follow-up to 2019’s Ode To Joy finds the group digging deep into the Country (and Alternative Country) genre that they were initially synonymous with upon releasing their debut album A.M. back in 1995.
“There have been elements of Country music in everything we’ve ever done,” frontman Jeff Tweedy explains in an official statement. “We’ve never been particularly comfortable with accepting that definition, the idea that I was making Country music. But now, having been around the block a few times, we’re finding it exhilarating to free ourselves within the form, and embrace the simple limitation of calling the music we’re making Country.”
Cruel Country is predominantly comprised of live take recordings, which marks a unique creative approach for the band. “It’s a style of recording that forces a band to surrender control and learn to trust each other, along with each others’ imperfections, musical and otherwise,” Tweedy states. “But when it’s working the way it’s supposed to, it feels like gathering around some wild collective instrument, one that requires six sets of hands to play.”
The band will perform the album live for the first time at their Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, MA next month, before heading overseas for a handful of European and UK tour dates.
Watch the official video for “Falling Apart (Right Now)” below and be sure to mark May 27th in your calendars for Cruel Country’s arrival.
PRE-ORDER Cruel Country via Wilco’s Official Store
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