So it appears I didn't explode last Tuesday. Which is good. The Elvis Costello CD is actually being released a week later here in Canada (comes out this Tuesday), so in fact there weren't as many sparks to ignite the music consumer powder keg that was me.

But I did pick up Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and Paul Westerberg's "Stereo/Mono". I'm dying to write about YHF. My thoughts about it have been coalescing over the past week or so, mixed in with the experience of seeing the band perform an amazing show at Convocation Hall a week ago, but as yet I haven't found the time to sit down and give it the proper review it deserves, and today I must try to finish my taxes, so it'll have to wait for a few more days at least. But suffice to say that YHF is a brilliant album. Defintely Wilco's finest work, and probably the best album I've heard since... well, since "Summerteeth".

The Westerberg is quite wonderful as well. Especially the "Mono" disc, credited to Grandpaboy, an "alter-ego" band which supposedly includes Replacement's bassist Tommy Stinson. It's got that kind of Mats sound, loose and swaggering. I don't know what kind of guitar-amp combination Westerberg uses on this album, but man oh man, what a glorious sound! Drawing from the Keith Richards tone book, wonderfully warm, tube-y amounts of crunchy distortion. Great springtime rockin' songs. Makes me wish I had a car just so I could cruise with the windows open and the stereo blasting "Mono".

The "Stereo" disc is mostly Westerberg solo, although there are a few band songs with elec guitars and a rhythm section. And while it is steadily growing on me, it didn't grab me as viscerally as the "Mono" stuff. There are some great songs ñ "Let The bad Times Roll" ñ and the opening line of the first track, "Baby learns to crawl watching Daddy's skin...", well, how genius is that? Then there's the disturbing double entendre from Got You Down: "he knows you like the back of his hand". Wow.
(It's a good thing the Costello CD wasn't released last week. An onslaught of Westerberg-Costello-Tweedy wordplay would have surely caused me to combust. But what a way to go!)

But I hear Westerberg on a few of the lesser "Stereo" songs mining very similar melodic territory as on his last album, "Suicane Gratifaction", a very good album in its own write. It's probably some of his finest solo work, but the repetitiveness I hear in some of his melodic instincts just irks me a bit. Plus, while I applaud the slapdash ethos of putting out these tracks ñ some of which are essentially demo recordings which end abruptly when the tape runs out ñ there are a few occasions where he could have simply faded the song out, and it would have been a less jarring experience for the listener. But maybe he wanted that effect. And maybe it is more interesting than a fade-out. Those minor gripes aside, "Stereo/Mono" is a fine release. Nice to see Westerberg back on track.

More later.