WILCO Wilco Nonesuc h ****

When this, the seventh Wilco studio album, was leaked online last May, the band took the “if you can’t beat them, join them” route and streamed it on their website the next day. They also suggested that anyone who downloaded it illegally should make a donation to charity.

To many, Wilco are this generation's equivalent to Neil Young. Albums such as Yankee Hotel Foxtrothave established them as sublime purveyors of a sound that isn't adequately summed up by that awful term "alt-country". In Jeff Tweedy, they have one of modern music's most talented characters.

This self-titled album is perhaps their most relaxed and upbeat to date – more akin to Summerteeththan anything else. It was recorded in New Zealand and mixed in California, and the surroundings obviously seeped into the album's tone. If this isn't Jeff Tweedy at his finest, it's Tweedy at his most consistent. The sound they've located here can be plotted somewhere between Big Star and The Band.

One Wingand the duet You and I(recorded with Leslie Feist) are sweetly arranged and beautifully delivered, while the melancholic aspect of the band manifests itself on Country Disappearedand Solitaire.

Power riffs intermingle with stacked vocal harmonies, and delicate keyboard moments meet big orchestral sweeps. There is genre-hopping aplenty – particularly on the weird Bull Black Novaand the closing track, Everlasting Everything– but the default mode is one of upbeat, mid-tempo, finely honed rock-pop.

Although only Tweedy and John Stirratt remain from the original line-up, this present configuration of the band seems to be the most proficient musically and the most at ease with the demands of the ever-evolving sounds. In a sense, the album is summed up by the first track, Wilco (The Song), which is a neat resumé of the band’s journey to date and, as they say, “a great, upbeat song professing our love for our fans”. www.wilcoworld.net

Download tracks: One Wing, You and I