The release of Wilco's new album, A Ghost Is Born, was delayed by band leader Jeff Tweedy's stint in rehab. By the especially dour mood of the record, I'm guessing valium or xanax may have been Tweedy's drug of choice.

A Ghost Is Born is quite listenable as background music, but little stands out. It's music for people who keep the curtains drawn shut all day. It's gloomy, with the listener struggling to hear mumbled or whispered lyrics set to music fit for an undertaker's transistor radio.

With two songs clocking at more then ten minutes, much of A Ghost Is Born is filler. The song "Less Than You Think," for instance, is as advertised. The tune runs about three-minutes long and is followed by twelve minutes of effects, computer noises, and annoying sounds that remind me of something that I might have heard on an old Dr. Who episode. Mr. Tweedy might want to leave the marathon songs to Pink Floyd next time around.

Those excruciating twelve minutes are made up for by the album's final track. "The Late Greats" is a commentary on the music scene. "The best songs will never get sung/The best life never leaves your lungs/So good you won't ever know/You'll never hear it on the radio." When you hear the line, "The best band will never get signed," the reality of its truthfulness sets in: Could ugly dudes like The Rolling Stones get signed in today's topsy-turvy, look-first, sound-second music industry? Wilco has made some great music over the years, but just as Mr. Tweedy sings, "you'll never hear it on the radio."

Wilco's A Ghost Is Born is an improvement over just about everything on the radio, and MTV for that matter. Unfortunately, it doesn't measure up to the band's existing body of work.