Loose Fur Born Again In The U.S.A. CD

Recording information: Sear Sound Studios, New York, NY; Wilco Loft.
The eponymous first album from Loose Fur, the Wilco side project that includes Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and uber-producer/art-rocker Jim O'Rourke, was seen by many as a safe house for further indulging the sonic experiments found on Wilco's YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT. This time out, the band switches from arty side-project to ragged super-group, and cuts loose to play some rock & roll.
As the album's title suggests, there's a satirical, irreligious tendency at work here, but the focus is on crunchy riffs and tight, well-crafted songs that run the gamut from lilting alt-country to straight ahead 4/4 guitar-rockers. Fans will enjoy hearing Tweedy play bass on a number of these tracks as fiercely as he once did for Uncle Tupelo, and the fun that he, Kotche, and O'Rourke had making this album comes through as clear as day.
Though it's in keeping with the jammy, appealingly tossed-off feel of their debut, Loose Fur's second album, Born Again in the USA, isn't quite as, well, loose as Loose Fur was. Actually, in its own mellow, affable way, it manages to be pretty accomplished while keeping the freewheeling, creative spark that made Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and Jim O'Rourke's collaboration fun the first time around. A mix of rambling instrumentals and songs that border on the poppy side of these artists' work, Born Again in the USA has a laid-back, late-'60s/early-'70s feel to it, particularly on the two Tweedy-sung songs that open the album. "Hey Chicken" boasts Southern-fried guitars and a lot of cowbell, while "The Ruling Class" gets its whistled hook from "Winchester Cathedral," its ambling groove from Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You," and its barbed lyrics and easygoing veneer from pop curmudgeons like Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman. Later on, "Apostolic"'s move from brittle acoustic strumming to electric power chords feels like a highbrow take on classic rock. O'Rourke's songs, meanwhile, run the gamut from the bittersweetly subversive soft rock ballad "Answers to Your Questions" to "Stupid as the Sun," a bright, sharp rocker in the mold of Insignificance, to "Thou Shalt Wilt," a sardonic, satirical take on the Ten Commandments that sounds like it could appear on a version of Schoolhouse Rocks for adults. Though a few moments on Born Again in the USA feel a little off-kilter and don't work entirely ("Pretty Sparks," the wandering, eight-and-a-half-minutes-long "Wreckroom"), these tracks make sure that Loose Fur isn't too neatly groomed. It's more of a proper album than Loose Fur itself was, but having fun making music together still sounds like the main priority on Born Again, which, once again, also makes it a lot of fun for Wilco and O'Rourke fans. ~ Heather PharesRolling Stone (p.69) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "BORN AGAIN is more concise and straightforward than twenty-first-century Wilco: Most songs are short, even sweet."
Magnet (p.105) - "There are tracks that could easily have been taken from any of the last three Wilco albums....Others could sit alongside O'Rourke's best solo material."
The Wire (p.p.42) - "[H]ere we get sharp, clean Prog rock, with a little soft rock around the edges..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.104) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[A]n absorbing collection of art-rock songs expertly fitted with experimental flourishes....[A] breezy exercise in '70s nostalgia..."