The title track off of My Morning Jacket’s newest LP, Evil Urges, begins innocently enough. It struts in with a snare drum downbeat; soft, funky guitar-plucking; and a twangy, country guitar riff, complete with syrupy slides. Overall, it is a seeming reassurance that the alt-country giants are back in fine form. However, as lead singer Jim James slinks in with a surprising, layered alto, a soulful falsetto croon more reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield than Neil Young, it becomes apparent that the Kentucky quintet is not in Louisville anymore. “Evil Urges”, a bricolage of extremely divergent genres including funk, Southern rock, blues, and country, serves as a warm-up to the album as a whole, which, through its swerving between the band’s noted strengths and their continuing flights with experimentalist tendencies, makes for a fantastic voyage and the band’s most original and exciting work to date.
For any longtime fans of My Morning Jacket, it should be clear by now, after 2005’s acclaimed Z, that the band’s penchant for reverb-soaked vocals and hushed instrumental strains have long since taken a back seat to piercing Prince-style vocals and fiery guitar heroics. The flecks of artistry and inspiration that peppered their debut effort The Tennessee Fire and separated it from contemporaries have been given room to breathe and fleshed out in all their glory. The band’s slow rise to fame recalls a roller-coaster ride, clicking up the tall first ascent with The Tennessee Fire and their sophomore LP, the excellent At Dawn. The band’s Southern-rock dominance stood high atop the peak with the magnificent It Still Moves. And if the wildly innovative Z is the excitement of the first drop, Evil Urges is the first loop. The listeners are not strapped in, but trust the music’s sheer chaotic force to keep them in their seats.
Urges, unlike previous Jacket LPs, contains not one extraneous song, not one skippable track. It flows elegantly from classic late-’60s outlaw country like “Smokin’ From Shootin” and “Sec Walkin’” to barn-burning rockers like “Aluminum Park” and “Remnants” to radical mutations like the disco-rock “Highly Suspicious” or the bizarre instrumentation of both parts of “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream”. To describe the album as “incomparable” would not be wholly inaccurate, as its style varies so wildly and its influence seems cherry-picked from the best rock has had to offer since its inception. However, the album might be most accurately described as a rough combination of R&B-style singing and Flaming Lips’ madcap experimentalism, all painted on a canvas of Lynyrd Skynyrd country-fried rock and roll. Overall, the piece gels fantastically and weirdly, stunning longtime fans with how different a band with a seemingly simple foundation - that of classic Southern rock - can sound when they let loose their artistic urges, and flooring first time listeners with its disparity and creativity.
During this year’s South By Southwest Music Festival, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James performed a solo set at St. David’s Episcopal Church to a hushed crowd of 240, all of whom witnessed acoustic performances of old classics such as “Gideon” and new tracks like “Librarian”. Much like during this performance, the listeners of Urges are all witness to the church of Jim James: instead of reverent sermons, he is preaching hellfire, brimstone, and, yes, evil from the pulpit, raining down a musical storm on us, the parishioners. Bow down before the mighty My Morning Jacket, because they’ve just crafted one of the best records of the year.
