Wilco has only maintained enough consistency over their fifteen-plus-year career to keep them in the same spot, which is on the front porch of alternative rock where country and indie-spirited experimentation occasionally stop by to hang out. Ignoring expectations while unassumingly meeting them, “The Whole Love” finds the Chicago-based outfit stringing together genres on an alternative rock thread, delivering unshakeable pop melodies in between creative bursts of organ, crunchy guitar and twangy strings.

Lead singer Jeff Tweedy delivers interchangeably moving and abstract lyrics with a controlled energy bubbling beneath the surface on slower tracks like “Rising Red Lung” and the meditative “One Sunday Morning.” That pressurized energy threatens to burst on tracks like “I Might” and “Standing O,” where Wilco sounds their most uptight and most comfortable – a combination that very few bands can relate to.

An American jam band at heart with a responsibility to capitalize on creative impulse, Wilco often interrupts their more calculated arrangements with segments of blitzy instrumentation. “The Whole Love” is an album that is unpredicatable, yet not surprising, and full of single-worthy tracks that make this a more-than-worthwhile listen – although it might have been interesting to see something more conceptually unified.