Wilco (the band) didn’t preview any songs off Wilco (the album) when it played at Jazz Fest a couple months before the CD’s release. But from Jeff Tweedy’s porkchop banter to the band’s amp-jumping antics and the bare-chested cowbell guy, the Fair Grounds set captured the goofy spirit of “Wilco (the song),” the album’s opening track. With tongue only half in cheek, Tweedy French-kisses fans on a giddy anthem only Wilco could pull off: “Put on your headphones before you explode. / Wilco, Wilco, Wilco will love ya, baby.” Riding a swell of chiming guitars with a riptide of dissonance, this catchy little tune sets the stage for a band at the peak of its power. Having stopped to catch its breath with Sky Blue Sky, the first stable lineup in Wilco’s checkered history has the luxury of exploring the nuances of the band’s sonic palette, which it does to great effect. But Wilco (the album) isn’t just a place-holder. Surprising, even shocking, twists lift a good collection of solid songs into greatness on several tracks.

Tweedy, who rarely pens character studies, goes for broke in “Bull Black Nova,” which slams us right inside the head of a murderer fresh from the kill: “It’s in my hair. / There’s blood in the sink. / I can’t calm down. / I can’t think.” Menacing chords presage the meltdown, turn suddenly sickeningly sweet, then pour salt on the victim’s wounds with a full-court Wilco press. The U-turn from ugly to sweet (and vice versa) also shadows tracks like “Sonny Feeling” and “Deeper Down,” which finds the “comfort of a kiss” buried inside its apparent “insult.” But the album’s emotional center is “You and I,” a lovely duet with Feist, which celebrates the mystery of the other. And “Everlasting Everything,” a gorgeous orchestral closer that echoes Sky Blue Sky’s “On and On,” reminds us that in a world where “everything goes, both the good and the bad … everlasting love is all you have.”

Like the man said: Wilco will love ya, baby.