THE wind of change is blowing ever stronger through Chicago's Wilco on their fifth album.

Where once they were the skewed country essence of melodic Americana, now chief songwriter Jeff Tweedy is taking Wilco's sonic experimentation beyond the bounds of fellow pioneers Grandaddy and Lambchop.

Less Than You Think clocks up 15 droning minutes, most of it given over to the kind of static electricity heard when a radio station slips out of range on a motorway journey: a sound as ghostly as the album title would suggest.

This is a haunted record, its release being held up by Tweedy's spell in rehab, brought about by his reliance on migraine painkillers. His voice throughout is high and fragile, like a kite about to crash land, as he exorcises demons blown about by the gale of sonic invention that owes as much to Sixties' jazz as the avant-rock tendencies of co-producer Jim O'Rourke.

Updated: 08:30 Thursday, July 01, 2004