*** Wilco

SUMMER TEETH

(Reprise)

As one of the founders of the band who gave No Depression its name (Uncle Tupelo), and a résumé that includes a Grammy nomination for work on an album of Woody Guthrie tunes (last year's Mermaid Avenue) and membership in the No Depression All Stars (a/k/a Golden Smog), Jeff Tweedy could be easily the king of alternative country. But on Wilco's two-disc Being There and the equally ambitious new Summer Teeth he's not content to narrow his focus to any standard notion of "roots" or to a largely insular '90s cult niche.

Like the Stones with the blues, Tweedy uses country rock as the means not the end. There's plenty of strum and twang, a weepy rustic ballad or two, and enough Southern accents on Summer Teeth to qualify it as Americana. And there's a friendly, guy-next-door casualness to Tweedy's delivery that's always appealing and that can make it easy to overlook how good he's gotten -- "She's a Jar" is the best Paul Westerberg tune the Goo-Goo Dolls didn't write in quite some time, only better, and so is "A Shot in the Arm." But Summer Teeth isn't a solo work: the band contribute Brian Wilson harmonies, space-age synths, and touches of Beatlesque psychedelia that stretch the definition of roots rock in directions that sound, if not quite new, at least fresh and, in Wilco's own easy-going way, refreshing, not depressing.

-- Matt Ashare