Beloved rock depressive tries to put his puking years behind him.

Jeff Tweedy sometimes wears a beard. Not a K–Fed skeez–o’clock shadow or a Bob Seger hungry–man mane. The Wilco frontman’s follicular aesthetic tends toward that what’s the point? scraggle you grow while giving serious consideration to permanently checking out of life. The fuzz adds an extra layer of scraggly sadness to a guy who isn’t exactly Mary Poppins. It’s kind of like Wilco’s endearingly messy, homespun rock, which hides baby–face vulnerability under thickets of gnarly sonics.

At some point, the depressed bath­robe–beard guy decides to dress himself, shave and go outside: That’s the hesitant re­solve you can hear on Sky Blue Sky, the gentlest music of the band’s 12–year existence. Every sound here — breakup–era Beatles, melodic–era Grateful Dead, classic country, ’70s soft rock and singer–songwriter folk — was playing on the radio during Tweedy’s youth in small–town Illinois. He summons them to work through a “rotten time” of depression and what sounds like a disintegrating marriage. On the album–opening “Either Way,” he sings: “Maybe the sun will shine today … Maybe I won’t feel so afraid,” as his creaky falsetto is lifted by sunny guitar, strings and organ.

Tweedy’s shaky mental health has always been a part of the Wilco experience. In the 2002 documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, he casually interrupts a stress–filled mixing session for a bout of anxiety–induced vomiting. In 2004, after releasing A Ghost Is Born, he went into rehab to treat an addiction to painkillers. Sky Blue Sky seems to begin the morning he returned from the hospital, “so satisfied I survived” and hopeful he can piece together his life. Rock and drugs have been tight buddies for generations, but few singers have tried to mirror the experience of the most popular, if unglamorous, substance around: not Hennessy or heroin or Hawaiian lift–off, but mood stabilizers. Tweedy doesn’t namedrop brands, but Sky Blue Sky often feels like the Dead’s American Beauty if Jerry Garcia had taken Paxil instead of acid. It’s an album about using your meds without letting them use you.

This isn’t easy. “Please Be Patient With Me” is an acoustic admission of emotional absenteeism set to a melody recalling John Lennon’s “Julia.” “Hate It Here” is an Abbey Road–steeped soul tune about finding household chores to do while the wife is indefinitely out of town. Lines like “Oh, but my blessings get so blurred” are a little wet, but to his credit, Tweedy tries to deal honestly with his angst. His fans mistake sonic experimentation for intellectual maturity, and he could easily satisfy them by building a misty moat of futuristic effluvia and vague imagery. But he keeps the melodies clean and the lyrics (mostly) clear.

And the music evolves from strummy self–pity to jamming self–assurance, especially on the humbly spiritual “What Light,” shaggy gospel rock about fighting off fear by making art. Reigning themselves in after explorations like A Ghost Is Born’s 11–minute psychedelic odyssey “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” Wilco root out Tweedy’s lousy moods. Guitarist Nels Cline plays spare, bright leads on “Leave Me (Like You Found Me)” and illuminating lap steel on “Sky Blue Sky,” a slow, porchy waltz about being alone in downtown Chicago.

By the closer, “On and On and On,” the husband and father in him has kicked in, and Tweedy’s even holding out hope for his family life, sending an epic e–mail to the distant Mrs. Tweedy, as Glenn Kotche gingerly roughs up his tom–toms and bassist John Stirratt pushes the pulse blue–skyward. “You can’t deny even the gentlest tide/On and on and on we’ll be together, yeah,” he sings, shaky with guarded optimism. Now who wouldn’t want to come home to that?

Download: “Sky Blue Sky,” “Hate It Here”