When the pandemic forced the humans of planet Earth into quarantine, a lot of folks started spending quite a bit more time with their families. That includes Jeff Tweedy. Although the Wilco frontman already maintained close relationships with his wife and two sons, living on lockdown, he found his family even more deeply enmeshed in his creative endeavors than usual. They started doing regular webcasts on Instagram Live under the name The Tweedy Show, performing music in casual, stripped-down fashion. And as we learned when summer was pivoting into autumn, they were making an album too.

Tweedy recorded Love Is The King back in April in an attempt to busy himself after Wilco’s tour dates were cancelled due to COVID-19. As Cate Le Bon writes in the official album bio, “With his sons, Spencer and Sammy, by his side, he set the task of writing and recording a song a day until they held an album in their hands. Creativity/music was their comfort food.” The results will indeed qualify as comfort food for most Tweedy fans. Love Is The King continues to dig into the bleary, organic, introspective folk and country Tweedy has often returned to throughout his career, especially in recent years as the solo albums have started to outnumber the Wilco LPs.

In tone and texture, Love Is The King is not so different from last year’s triumphal sigh Ode To Joy, but the stakes feel decidedly lower here. If you’ve been following Tweedy’s career lately, you probably know exactly what to expect. What might surprise you is how great many of these tracks are despite coming together so quickly — or maybe because of it?

Listen to Love Is The King below.

Love Is The King is out now digitally and 1/15 physically via dBpm. Purchase it here. Additionally, you can read an excerpt from Tweedy’s recent book How To Write One Song here.