My Morning Jacket - Their 'Urge' to Branch Out Falls Short

My Morning Jacket, which formed in 1998 in Louisville, Kentucky, has become a popular live performance over the last couple of years at such festivals as Bonnaroo, & Coachella. Stylistically the band draws on alternative country, southern rock (such as .38 Special), and indie folk rock influences.

Their recent album "Evil Urges" (fifth studio album) released in a firestorm of media hype, was supposed to be a branch out album for the group. Jim James, the front man for MMJ stated that the band wanted to get away from "normal rock and roll sounds" and emulate more of the band's live sound. Even though I respect bands that try and branch out, there still needs to be an element of cohesion with previous albums which allow new and old fans something to grasp onto. Unfortunately their new album seems to go into uncharted territory too much.

The album comes across as a risky attempt by the band, which doesn't serve to impress me much, especially after all the hype surrounding them with Bonnaroo and their terrific live performances at the Red Rocks, South by Southwest (and all the other huge live music festivals.) Rolling Stone had even given the album rave reviews as well, and I had picked up the album on their recommendation, however I found a lot of the praise misplaced with this particular album. Just listen to the song 'Highly Suspicious' and its incredibly annoying chorus and you'll see what I mean.

The album itself starts off with very surreal, spacey pop rock songs with the first three tracks: "Evil Urges", "Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt.1", "Highly Suspicious." Which leads me to the abrasive antics of the latter track which sounds almost like a bad Prince cover, and seems incredibly misplaced on the album as a whole. I am not a fan of Prince personally either so that didn't help. Jim James' uncharacteristically high vocals in the song, plus creepy laughter make 'Highly Suspicious' a highly undesirable track to listen to. Will Hermes of Rolling Stone pointed out: "nothing in their discography could anticipate a song like "Highly Suspicious," Evil Urges' biggest WTF moment. Squeaking out rhymes like "Home alone dotting your i's/Peanut-butter-pudding surprise!" in helium falsetto over boogie-rock guitar outbursts, drill-sergeant backing vocals and clipped drum spasms, it's better suited to an I Love the '80s! mix, set between "Little Red Corvette" and Devo's "Whip It," than to a My Morning Jacket album. (And, dude, I don't even want to know what a "peanut-butter-pudding surprise" is.) It's both hilarious and badass." I would like to agree with Will Hermes, but I don't. The track seems to drag down the album overall in my opinion, and would hate to hear it live, and with the audience chanting along the 'highly suspicious!' vocal line.

Thankfully the next couple of tracks, "I'm Amazed", "Thank You too", and "Sec Walkin" find the band tranversing more familiar ground with the Southern Rock infused jam band sound which made them famous on previous albums. Unfortunately they are not exactly strong songs either - with 'Sec Walkin' sounding like a 70's soul song with thick blatantly poppy choruses.

The track the 'Librarian', is a nice comtemplative moment on the album, which was one of my favorite tracks on the album. When the slide guitars laden with reverb and the string sections break in at about half way through the song, it is a nice relaxing listen. I found many opportunities to compare Jim James' vocals in this song to Robin Pecknold's of Fleet Foxes.

Another track which is nice and is reminscent of their earlier work is "Smokin' From Shootin' " the 12th track on the album, right before the long reprise of "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt.2." The 8:12 minute reprise track is actually my favorite on the album - it first starts off with fairy like keyboards, and synthesizers, which then break into a disco drum beat, and then into a reverby vocal line with Jim James and thick choruses with plenty of back up vocals. It grooves along nicely with driving bass and settles out the album nicely to its end, even though the majority of the tracks prior to "Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2" were quite laborious.

Overall the album was hard to salvage any songs which would be worthy of more than a single listen. There was even songs on the album which aren't even worth a single listen, which I know is harsh, but 'Highly Suspicious' was a very grating song. "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2", "Librarian", and "I'm Amazed" would be the only real songs worth taking away from this album - I would suggest just downloading these on iTunes and pitching the rest of the album, it was just too tedious to get through.