Record Review: Wilco's "Hot Sun Cool Shroud"

A Summer-Themed EP From America's Iconic Alt-Rock Band

Kathleen Ryan designed “Hot Sun Cool Shroud's” artwork, which incorporates the artist’s “Bad Fruit” collection.

Wilco is now thirty and has created a solid body of work, including thirteen studio albums and six extended plays (EPs). Their latest EP “Hot Sun Cool Shroud,” was released June 29, 2024, and was created in anticipation of the band’s appearance at the Solid Sound Festival in the Berkshires.

Wilco’s leader Jeff Tweedy said,

It's fun to have something new to release at Solid Sound. This year we’re putting out an EP with a summertime-after-dark kind of feeling. It starts off pretty hot, like heat during the day, has some instrumentals on it that are a little agitated and uncomfortable and ends with a cooling breeze.

There are tracks on “Hot Sun Cool Shroud” that are more aggressive and angular than anything we’ve put out in a while, and a song about love melting you like ice cream into a puddle of sugary soup. All the pieces of summer, including the broody cicadas.