My Morning Jacket loosens up
Thursday, August 21st, 2008By Chris Parker
Many bands settle into their suburban tracts after four albums, content to reiterate the sounds and themes explored in their first decade. Yeah, they’ll add some strings, or do an acoustic album, but generally they’re content to sit back and raise their kids.
My Morning Jacket is the exceptional act that significantly expanded its horizons just as it was emerging into the spotlight. During its first five years, the Louisville quintet recorded three albums of country rock and folk, echoing Neil Young and the Band, with a rugged jam-band boogie. Indeed, its early reputation was earned on its energetic, hard-charging live performances.
It could have settled there, content with its indie-country niche. Instead, 2005’s Z moved the band beyond that fuzzed-out, rambling-rock ghetto and stretched its muscle. A critical fave and resident of most year-end top 10 lists, the album wandered widely, invoking pop texture, art-rock grandeur, pretty piano balladry and bubbly power pop without totally abandoning their Southern-fried rustic stomp.
It set My Morning Jacket on a new shelf, and the intervening three years heightened anticipation for Evil Urges (ATO Records), released in June. It’s even more ambitious, if not nearly as felicitous stylistically. Though it’s failed to garner as much universal adoration as Z, Evil Urges pushes the band into new territory while simultaneously looking back to My Morning Jacket’s beginnings.
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(Photo by Autumn Dewilde)
