Wilco — from left, Glenn Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen, Jeff Tweedy, Nels Cline, Pat Sansone, John Stirrat — perform at Hill Auditorium on Friday, Oct. 16.

Photo by Autumn DeWilde

In the 15 years since Wilco was founded, it seems like the band has constantly been in the process of rethinking its sound, pursuing a new musical direction on almost an album-by-album basis.

And its latest disc, the wryly-titled “Wilco (The Album),” seems to be a summation of the various musical paths the band has navigated over the years.

When Wilco was formed in 1994, it was an alt-country gang. Led by main songwriter and singer Jeff Tweedy, Wilco delivered a debut album, “A.M.,” in ’95 that was hailed for its mix of Stonesy, ragged-but-right guitars; Gram Parsons' stoner-country vibe; and the charming, shambling primitivism of Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

Wilco, who come to Hill Auditorium on Friday, then began moving in a more “pop’ direction on their next two discs. Fast forward a few years, and by the time the sessions for ‘02’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” came along, the band had taken off on a more experimental trajectory, sprinkling the record with off-the-wall sonic snippets and studio effects. A couple of years later, “Kicking Television,” the band’s ’05 live disc, unleashed the full force of "new" guitarist Nels Cline’s unruly talents, bolstering the band's sound with more more noisy dissonance. Cline had joined in ‘04, but until "Television," no one had quite been prepared for the ferocious art noise that Cline sculpted on the live disc. (And he still continues to step up and blow the audience’s collective head off with his fretboard freakouts.)

In ’07, surprisingly, came a return, in some ways, to the band's country-rock roots on “Sky Blue Sky” — a record that also drew on some jazzy influences, compliments of Cline’s chops in that genre and also retained some of his guitar dissonance.

Which brings us back to “Wilco (The Album)” — a purposeful title, since the album does synergize many of the sounds and styles the group has plumbed over the course of those previous discs. The strongest tracks recall the group’s early days, and are constructed around simple, infectious melodies: “You Never Know,” for example, is an affectionate, spot-on homage to George Harrison’s ‘70s-era work, complete with the signature slide guitar, and “Sonny Feeling” revives the country-rock vibe of “A.M.”

Elsewhere, the band plays around with some of the studio experimentation of “Foxtrot,” and “Bull Black Nova” recalls the sinister sound of ‘04’s “A Ghost is Born," as an ominous organ and repetitive, minimalist piano prod Tweedy’s fretful-sounding vocals while he sings about deeds from the past that “can’t be undone.”

The group invited the Canadian songstress Feist to duet with Tweedy on the breezy “You and I.” And the foursquare “Wilco (The Song)” is a declaration of purpose. While Cline gleefully punctuates the melody with some noisy guitar skronks, Tweedy sings: “Do you dabble in depression?/Is someone twisting a knife in your back?....Wilco will love you, baby.”

Listen to “Wilco (The Album)”:

That line clearly comes from Tweedy’s personal experience. He battled depression, anxiety attacks and migraines for several years, then became addicted to painkillers — and had to enter rehab to overcome that addiction. Through therapy and proper medication, he’s been clean and more serene for a few years now, but he clearly recalls the emotional scars of that period.

As for the sound of the current album, Tweedy has said that “Sky Blue Sky” suffered from what he called “a bit of purity complex” — that the group had been trying to keep the overdubs to a minimum on that disc, and that, after having accomplished that on “Sky Blue,” the group felt liberated,and decided to reincorporate “the other ways we know how to use a studio.”

Cline elaborated in a recent Paste magazine interview: “Working on this record was very different from ‘Sky Blue Sky’ because Jeff, right away, wanted the record to be more studio-intensive—with more overdubbing and more sonic flavors,” said Cline. “In that way, it was completely different from ‘Sky Blue Sky,’ which was essentially a live record in the studio, and very team-written. A lot of what we (Cline and second guitarist Pat Sansone) did on this one was add to the basic tracks, whereas with ‘Sky Blue Sky,’ we already knew all the parts were good to go.”

The members of Wilco now connect more intuitively than in the past — probably because “this lineup has been together longer than any other in the group’s history,” Tweedy recently told Time magazine. “We’ve stumbled on a working chemistry. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s experience — I think that certainly contributes to everyone being able to keep their perspective rooted in some reality.”

About that lineup: Wilco’s roster was indeed a revolving door for the first 10 of its 15 years, with band members seemingly coming and going after almost every album: Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt are the only founding members remaining.

And some of those changes were not pretty. During its first decade, the band frequently seemed fraught with drama. The most acrimonious split was the departure of the extremely-talented Jay Bennett, the guitarist/multi-instrumentalist who had played a hugely important role in shaping the band’s sound from ’94-’02. His disintegrating relationship with Tweedy was excruciatingly captured on tape in the Wilco documentary “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” which showed the escalating tension between the two during the sessions for “Foxtrot.”

Part 1 of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,”:

By the time “Foxtrot” was released, Bennett had been booted out of the band, and drummer Ken Coomer was gone, as well — reinforcing Tweedy's rep at the time as an extremely demanding bandleader, and one who was not always patient.

Tragically, Bennett died in May, at age 45, reportedly of an accidental overdose of painkillers. He reportedly had a bad hip due to an old injury, and was pursuing surgery to fix it. His death came just a few weeks after he sued Tweedy for breach of contract, claiming he had not been properly paid for his contributions to the film and his work on the band’s albums.

Tweedy came off as more than a little insensitive — and not very gracious — when, not long after Bennett’s death, he told the New York Times that kicking Bennett out of the band “was one of the first decisions I made to get healthy…..It was not going to end well.”

He was more magnanimous in the Time interview, however, saying that Bennett was a “really gifted musician, and we worked really well together for a period of time when we were becoming much more expensive in our ability to take from a lot of different styles. And Jay facilitated a lot of that growth. He could grab hold of a lot of styles and be conversant with them.”

One striking aspect of the current disc is that several of the tunes are hopeful, even joyous — at a time when many Americans are struggling, hurting and in some cases despairing, due to the battered economy.

“I guess I don’t think there is any reason to feel guilty about having joy in your life, regardless of how bad things are in the world” Tweedy told Time. “I think art is a consolation, regardless of its content. It has the power to move, and make you feel like you’re not alone.”

PREVIEW Wilco Who: Critically acclaimed band that has been redefining its sound since its 1994 beginnings. Liam Finn opens. What: A heady mix of roots-rock, folk, alt-country, psychedelia, art-noise guitar bursts and occasional jazzy chording. Where: Hill Auditorium, 825 S. University Ave. When: Friday, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: SOLD OUT. Details: 734-763-8587, Ticketmaster.

Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.