Perhaps inspired by the process of writing his recent memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), Uncle Tupelo and Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics on Warm appear to have taken a turn for the personal. There’s certainly a greater directness on his first solo album proper (last year’s Together at Last found him rerecording highlights from his back catalogue, while 2014’s Sukierae was a collaboration with his drummer son, Spencer), with a willingness to tackle subjects such as death, ageing and, in Bombs Above, the art of songwriting itself: “I leave behind a trail of songs/ From the darkest gloom to the brightest sun.”
Standout track Don’t Forget might be as breezily lovely as Sukierae’s Summer Noon, but scratch beneath the surface and it becomes clear that it’s about the events surrounding the death of Tweedy’s father last year. On the irresistibly singalong Let’s Go Rain, meanwhile, he hopes for a biblical flood to wash away the ills of the world, while I Know What It’s Like showcases his gift for a winning melody. But for every upbeat arrangement, there’s a more introspective counterpart, the closing How Will I Find You being particularly skeletal. Thirty years into his career, Warm shows that Tweedy is as absorbing as ever.
