Album Review: My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges

With each successive release, it's easy to see that Jim James and crew are working to expand the reach of the band's sound more and more. The move from 2003's It Still Moves to 2005's stellar Z marked a shift from their traditional, reverb-entrenched Southern rock psychedelia to a more tightly written yet experimental and otherworldly sonic landscape. This year, My Morning Jacket expanded the range of their musical radar even further with their incredibly eclectic and ambitious fifth album Evil Urges.

The album is essentially a template of various musical genres that have crept into rock occasionally over the last 50 years but have rarely ever been grouped together on one album like they have been here. It's certainly an admirable feat, as not many other bands around today would dare to throw themselves into as many different pools as Jim James dives into here. While the Southern rock spirit still exists in their music ("I'm Amazed"), there are also flavors of arena rock ("Aluminum Park"), country ("Sec Walkin'"), 50s pop ("Two Halves"), folk ballads ("Librarian") and even psychedelic funk ("Evil Urges") mixed in.

The good news is that the band certainly succeeds much more than it fails, at times even reaching the exceptional heights of songcraft that Z so majestically achieved. The opening, title track "Evil Urges" is a bouncy and entrancing foray into funk, featuring James' unexpected Prince-like falsetto backed by layers of swirling guitar, piano, and driving percussion. It's easy to become completely immersed in the beauty of "Look at You", led by entrancing slide guitars and James’ fantastic vocals that sway back and forth between powerful confidence and haunting fragility.

And of course, I can't forget to mention the triumphant one-two knock-out punch that the finale delivers. The second to last track "Smokin' from Shootin'" is a tremendously listenable and gripping piece. During the first two-thirds of the song, James questions the mysteries of life and expresses the difficulty of searching for something we don't even know exists. The final third of the song builds to a booming climax that has James bellowing out his angst with no strings attached. The song concludes and we slide into the album closer "Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Part 2" as we hear a sucking sound as if we're being pulled into a vacuum where nothing else exists but the staccato keyboards that begin to creep their way in. As the song continues, more layers begin appearing in this desolate, Pink Floydian space including a drum machine, James' vocals, and eventually the swelling backing vocals and synthesizers. By its end, the song is lifted to astronomical and almost spiritual heights, only to fade away layer by layer just as it came in.

While the album certainly attains levels of brilliance, there are also points where it fails miserably. With Evil Urges, James is trying to juggle too many genres at once and simply can't keep them all in the air at the same time. Probably the most mind-boggling, "what-were-you-thinking" song of MMJ's career appears on track three with the awful "Highly Suspicious". In trying to be an edgy, sexually-driven funk song, James' sinister laughing just ends up being the tipping point for the huge mess that it is. There's also the lackluster "Remnants", which pops up immediately after the album's only other rocker "Aluminum Park" and is nothing more than a shadow of it, swallowing itself up with failed hooks and unexciting songwriting. This actually brings to light another disappointment of the album, its very odd and poorly chosen track order. Whether it's James saying in an interview that the second half of the album starts after the first three tracks or the unnecssary 6-second closer "Good Intentions", the album suffers from what I like to call "iPod Shuffle Syndrome".

What made their previous effort Z so exceptional (enough to make it to the top ten of my Top 100 Albums list, see earlier posting) was that it not only took the band to a new and exciting place, but also the creation of music that was consistently well-written and effective in that new place. Between It Still Moves and Z, the band essentially looked down a new, foreign road and decided to take a direct and focused journey down it. With Evil Urges, rather than boldly traveling down a new road, they seem to be standing at an intersection of a dozen roads, spinning around in circles and spreading themselves too thin trying to cover all of the new, diverse terrain. I do have to give Jim James credit for once again pushing the limits of his band. Also, his ability shown here to adapt his vocals to the different genres that each song inhabits is beyond impressive, putting him in an elite group of modern rock vocalists. But personally I hope that with their next release they decide to take the road less traveled rather than the roads that have already been thoroughly traveled by both innovators and followers over the past 50 years.

Key Tracks:
Evil Urges
Sec Walkin'
Look At You

Final Verdict: 7.8

My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges