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My Morning Jacket: Evil Urges

Evil Urges is not so much a departure as a consolidation. It takes the dance-oriented rhythms that characterized Z and bonds them with a return to the massive guitar heroics of their earlier albums. Gone for the most part is the alien keyboard sound that made Z so startling and different, but also gone is the band’s signature reverb, the cavernous sound that made them seem otherworldly. Jim Jones’ soaring, angelic tenor is subdued in the mix and comes across more as a funk/soul falsetto.

It takes a fair amount of listens for Evil Urges to really sink into your flesh, and flesh it is, those nefarious desires they refer to are for reveling in the carnal. It is earthy, even sexy, coming off as a planned merger between Lynyrd Skynyrd and Prince. Awesome. The title track is a great start, with both those elements with a strong side of Spoon’s gutter-guitar noise.

The keyboard-heavy sound of Z only really comes to the fore on “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream” (both sections of it, but in particular the brilliantly epic second part) but the really weird moment is “Highly Suspicious” which is pretty much a Tone-Loc song and I can hardly fault it for being relentlessly entertaining, ridiculous as it may be. My Morning Jacket are avowed Achievers and never has their sense of humour come through more in their music than on Evil Urges. “Sec Walkin” is practically the Randy Newman parody from Family Guy.

When they are at their best, Evil Urges finds the band in their chiming, vast glory. “I’m Amazed” is as grandiose and memorable as anything they’ve done. “Thank You Too!” loses something in its saccharine chorus, but the verses make up for it in swaying gracefulness. “Librarian” despite usage of the word ‘interweb’ is a particular high point, discussing the ever-burning question of image-consciousness. Then there’s the pure hard rock moments that found their way on to Evil Urges, those being “Aluminum Park” and “Remnants” – the sharpest, most unreservedly the band has ever let loose.

Not really so engrossingly bizarre as Z, Evil Urges is still very much My Morning Jacket keeping the faith and continuing to carve their uniquely twisted path.

82% => ****

~ by jshopa on July 2, 2008.