Review: Wilco gets rough, risky on free new album ‘Star Wars’

The letters “EKG� don’t denote comfort. They’re frightening, cold and anxiety-inducing – letters that are best to be avoided. And yet that’s how Wilco opens its ninth studio album, with an 85-second instrumental that puts the listener on notice and on edge.

Guitars poke and prod. A bass revs up, and then it roars. The song is disjointed. In one moment, it sounds like city traffic. In another, it coasts around a curve, at least until the rhythm hits some speed bumps and drives the song into a curb. Where “EKG� is heading is never quite clear. Clarity is not what Wilco is after on this album. It’s thrilling.

Thus begins “Star Wars,� the album Wilco surprise-released on its website for free Thursday evening. There was no warning, no promotional tease, just 11 songs, a picture of a lovable white house cat and the words “Star Wars,� partly in cursive, partly not. It’s a cover that feels designed to be familiar – Wilco, after all, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year – but also to toy with perceptions, to close the book on the band’s first two decades and start plotting a new course.

Even for a band without such an extensive back catalog, “Star Wars� is an electric jolt. Leader Jeff Tweedy’s husky reassuring voice is obscured among static shocks and a loose approach that feels in danger of running off the rails. Since a once-evolving Wilco lineup solidified about a decade ago with ace drummer Glenn Kotche and L.A.’s jazzy guitar freak Nels Cline, a question has lingered: What would Wilco sound like if the band unhooked the studio shackles and cut loose instead of went for perfection? “Star Wars� is at least one answer to that query.

The album was no doubt inspired by the relatively raw “Sukierae,� Tweedy’s 2014 work with his son, Spencer. Speaking to The Times in March, Tweedy hinted that a new Wilco would be a bit more coarse.

“There will be some efforts to point at the outer edges a little more fervently,� Tweedy said.

The Wilco on “Star Wars� is a long way removed from the one that cut folk-pop pleasantries with Feist (“You and I� in 2009). Oddities abound, be it the knotted high-pitched guitars of “The Joke Explained� or the metallic echoes of “You Satellite,� which abruptly picks up speed and then cuts out.

All of it is welcome. Since “The Whole Love� was released in 2011, Wilco has spent endless time on the road and even engaged in a bit of nostalgia, unleashing a four-CD collection of outtakes and rarities last year. While the band’s recent works have been respectable, they’ve been more reassuring than revelatory. “Wilco will love you, baby,� the band proclaimed on 2009’s “Wilco (The Album).�

Here, the group doesn’t seem so sure. There’s a sense of being overwhelmed on “More…� and a yearning for miracles on the heated “Random Name Generator,� where studio effects bury a rhythm that sounds like a tangle of jet noises. “I kinda like when I make you cry,� sings Tweedy, adding to the dissonance.

It’s a darker work than Wilco has primarily become known for in recent years. It’s less about music as a comforting agent and more about music as a tool to reflect our tough times. “Why do our disasters creep so slowly into view?� Tweedy sings on “Taste the Ceiling.�

“Pickled Ginger� is downright ferocious, sounding as if it were recorded in a gutter, complete with Kotche’s drums rattling the walls. “No one tells me how to behave,� Tweedy snaps. And later, the tick-tocking “Magnetized� closes the album on an off-balance note. It sort of sounds like orchestral ‘60s pop, although it stays on high alert as it fades in and out. Is that a church organ the song is built around? Is that a bowed guitar that arrives at moment’s end? Even the loving lyrics hint at multiple directions. “I sleep underneath a picture that I keep of you next to me,� Tweedy sings.

Nothing ever quite feels certain on “Star Wars,� an album in which one of pop-culture’s most recognizable phrases -- and a 20-year-old band -- is flipped into something wholly unpredictable.