Album due May 27th

Wilco will release its 12th studio album, Cruel Country, as a double album digitally on May 27th via dBpm. The lead single, “Falling Apart (Right Now),” is available now digitally. CD and LP editions are in the works, but will be announced at a later date due to supply chain issues.

The double album features 21 Jeff Tweedy-penned tracks, made almost entirely of live takes, created with all six members together in The Loft in Chicago for the first time since the 2011 release The Whole Love.

Cruel Country is the band’s exploration of the genre they’ve often been defined by but, until now, never fully embraced.

“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. More than any other genre, country music, to me, a white kid from middle-class middle America, has always been the ideal place to comment on what most troubles my mind — which for more than a little while now has been the country where I was born, these United States,” Jeff Tweedy explains.

He continues, “And because it is the country I love, and because it’s country music that I love, I feel a responsibility to investigate their mirrored problematic natures. I believe it’s important to challenge our affections for things that are flawed. Country music is simply designed to aim squarely at the low-hanging fruit of the truth. If someone can sing it, and it’s given a voice… well, then it becomes very hard not to see. We’re looking at it. It’s a cruel country, and it’s also beautiful. Love it or leave it. Or if you can’t love it, maybe you’ve already left.”

The group will also perform the album in its entirety during its own Solid Sound Festival on May 27th in North Adams, MA.

CD 1:

1. I Am My Mother
2. Cruel Country
3. Hints
4. Ambulance
5. The Empty Condor
6. Tonight’s The Day
7. All Across The World
8. Darkness Is Cheap
9. Bird Without A Tail / Base Of My Skull
10. Tired Of Taking It Out On You
11. The Universe

CD 2:

1. Many Worlds
2. Hearts Hard To Find
3. Falling Apart (Right Now)
4. Please Be Wrong
5. Story To Tell
6. A Lifetime To Find
7. Country Song Upside-down
8. Mystery Binds
9. Sad Kind of Way
10. The Plains