My Morning Jacket less strange but back in form for "Circuital"

Jim James and delightfully strange My Morning Jacket

Everyone I know who likes My Morning Jacket, the spacey Louisville, Kentucky rock band with the curious name, has the same opinion of the band's last two records. Z is a transcendent work of staggering beauty, and its followup, Evil Urges1, is an off-the-rails creative disaster, a runaway train of bad ideas and half-baked sounds.

For fans, that turnaround was tough to take. Therefore I was anxious about hearing the band's new record, Circuital, last week. The band had played the title track live, and it was good. But what would it sound like on the record? And what about the other songs? Would there be any freaky funk workouts? James Taylor easy-listening throw aways?

I'm pleased to report that, while the band has not produced an equal to Z, it has recovered a great deal of ground lost to the goofiness of Evil Urges. Circuital is a controlled, 10-song set of what we have come to expect from MMJ: Good songwriting and great performance.

The album starts with a risky electro-trumpet blare on the first track, "Victory Dance," but the song settles quickly into a slow, groovy rocker. From track to track, Circuital moves flawlessly between guitar rock and slow country-ish balladry, but all with that trademark James/MMJ sound.

There are, in my opinion, some instant classics on Circuital -- the sort of songs that stick to you after only one listen. The title track is one: a 7 and a half minute song that steadily builds into a moving epic of reverb and rhythm. "You Wanna Freak Out" might be my favorite song.  It's a simple three-chord, acoustic rocker that crashes in with a nice, loud guitar chorus, with just a little pedal steel behind it for effect. I even really like the weepy, country-flavored acoustic ballad "Wonderful (The Way I Feel Tonight)." It might be the prettiest song the band has ever recorded.

One thing that is missing from this record, though, is the band's trademark 'strange.' MMJ leader Jim James and his crew are weird guys. One of the things that makes Z so great is that, for a rock record by a southern band, it has a real unexpected sound -- one that was really remarkable for its time (that would be 2005). It was part southern rock and part spacey sound experiment. All of it was a wall of reverb and James' inimitable, high-ranging voice.

From the unexpected keyboard bubble and "Ahhaaahaaahaahhh" chorus of "Wordless Chorus," to the reggae stomp of "Off the Record" to the carnival organ of "Into the Woods" (which begins with the words, "A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender. Both sound as sweet as a night of surrender."), Z was wonderfully disorienting and pleasantly bizzarre -- it is the through-the-looking-glass experience of Jim James' dream state. And yet it was infectious. The songs stuck.

Evil Urges' biggest sin was taking the strange impulse too far. There's no rescuing that records' "Highly Suspicious," which sounds like a missing Ray Parker Jr. outtake from the Ghostbusters soundtrack. Perhaps, aware that he had overreached, James was more careful this time. There are certainly odd moments on Circuital. The most notable is the song "Hanging On to Black Metal." Complete with dramatic horn blasts and what sounds like a chorus of 30 kids on backup vocals, it is what you'd imagine MMJ would compose if asked to score a James Bond film. It's strange, but still manages to be a cool song. I don't find myself in a panic to hit the track forward button as I often was on Evil Urges.

Circuital may not be revelatory, but it does a fine job of righting My Morning Jacket's ship. It is a really great record by a remarkably creative band.

Footnote

1) I've since come to appreciate Evil Urges recently. The secret, I find, is to just skip the second song, "Highly Suspicious," which makes the record at least about three times better.