It would be nonsense to argue otherwise. But as much of a truism as that might be, it does a great disservice to their studio work to write it off as simply an excuse to keep them on the road promoting a new album.
On Z onwards, the production got slicker and the song lengths reined in-tighter, psychedelic vehicles for shooting off into parts unknown.
In a way, the studio work of MMJ is crucial as a way in to a band that is messily hard to define. As much as you can try to pigeonhole them, they seem to slip through it. Evil Urges sympathizers can make their case in the comments. But with Evil Urges that flexibility gave way to aimless genre-hopping that served to undermine the overall coherence and integrity of it as an album.
It isn't necessarily a bad album; there is still great material here. The perhaps more contentious parts are actually highlights; the electro-funk experiments are the most interesting, and I'm firmly Team "Highly Suspicious.
It's the middle stretch of the album where things go awry, where the zany grooves of its opening salvo give way to a horrific detour into soft-rock shmaltz. Songs like "Sec Walkin'" and "Two Halves" feel saccharine and limp on their own, and aimless within the context of the whole album.
Likewise, the late album one-two of the admittedly catchy "Aluminum Park" and the more minor "Remnants" feels like an obligatory "rock track" stop-gap to fill the place the total classic "Anytime" occupied on Evil Urges ' predecessor Z. Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, the grab-bag Evil Urges may have more pop-indie cache than their earlier albums, marking MMJ's highest chart entry on the Billboard at No.
Nevertheless, the band has worn a lot of hats, but some here don't sit quite right on Jim James's rock god hair, and Evil Urges may live on as a transitional record. It's a pretty lo-fi affair compared to what came later, lush in its own way but less defined than subsequent MMJ releases. Here, you can see the template, oddly, for almost everything that followed. The overarching vibe is the alt-country indie sound they primarily trafficked in originally, but in "The Bear" you can hear James learning the ropes for crafting sweeping catharses, which he will later employ in "Gideon.
And, ultimately, that's why The Tennessee Fire is ranked where it is: it's a strong album that suffers in relation to what came later, made to feel like a sketchbook. After all, this was a different band -- James and bassist Tom Blankenship are the only members remaining from these early recordings.
Still, this is important listening, marking the beginning of their story and a remaining artifact of a different MMJ, one that was of dark swamps and chilling alt-country-tinged songs that spoke to the particular brand of bleariness that can only come with stumbling out of the bar in the cold moments before dawn.
Circuital There were two narratives put forth in the lead-up to Circuital : it'd capture their live sound, and it would be a return to form after their recent stylistic detours. The press interpreted the name as a reference to the latter; the band talked about the former.
Having recorded Circuital predominantly playing in a circle together in a church gymnasium, MMJ nevertheless released an album as similarly polished as their last two -- not a bad thing, but it's strange that James has talked of seeking a more live sound with Evil Urges and Circuital when the sprawl of It Still Moves seemed to capture it perfectly in What Circuital really feels like is the logical successor to Z that never happened, while simultaneously being a bit of a sidestep from Evil Urges.
It continues the band's tradition of their opening songs being amongst their best. Unfortunately, Circuital grows uneven in the second half. It's unfortunate that it peters out like that, but Circuital brings some very strong material into the MMJ catalogue, and promises a more consistent path after the confidence-shaking Evil Urges.
Each of the first three MMJ albums were recorded partially at the farm of then-guitarist — and James's cousin — Johnny Quaid, but this is the one that is practically defined by the fact that James recorded his vocals in a grain silo, in search of an ethereal echo he couldn't quite attain in a normal studio. And it worked. At Dawn simultaneously feels not of this world and yet so totally American, the details of its inception appropriate footnotes to an album that so perfectly evokes the nation's landscape as so many country or Americana albums have before it.
But At Dawn is of that ilk that paints the landscape as haunted. James' hyper-reverbed voice is a ghostly tour guide through a South he figures as eerie and perhaps destructive on tracks like "At Dawn," or "If It Smashes Down," or in the headlong descent of "Strangulation!.
I've never really been able to decide if I think "X-Mas Curtain" and "The Way That He Sings" are some of the saddest-sounding MMJ songs or some of the most euphoric, and that seems another consequence of the spectral nature of all the reverb — by creating all that expansiveness, there's room around the edges for you to bring your own meanings. At over an hour and littered with some overlong tracks, At Dawn is not the most viable first step into MMJ's body of work, but it is essential listening once the door's been opened.
It Still Moves If the reverb of At Dawn suggested something haunting echoing out of the farthest reaches of the American frontier, the reverb of It Still Moves is lush, replacing fear with wonder. That's fitting, because It Still Moves is a thing to behold.
Just a touch shorter than At Dawn , the album feels twice as immense. My Morning Jacket - Sweetheart 7. Off the record. My Morning Jacket - Chills 4. Acoustic Citsuoca Live! The Bear Sooner Bermuda Highway Golden Hopefully ifolder Rapidshare Megaupload. Live at Bonnaroo. My Morning Jacket - Mahgeeta My Morning Jacket - Cobra Okonokos Live album.
Acoustic Chorale Narod. My Morning Jacket - Intro Music - My Morning Jacket - Off the Record My Morning Jacket - Tuning - My Morning Jacket - Dondante Dear Wife 3. Knot Comes Loose 4. From Nashville To Kentucky 5. They Ran 6. Thank You Too ifolder Rapidshare Megaupload. Celebracion De La Ciudad Natal. Interlude 4. B-sides and demos. Early Recordings. The Sandworm Cometh. Blues" Ga-Ed Out — Just One Thing Demo 3. Death is the Easy Way Demo 7.
Bermuda Hwy Live 8. Nothing 2 Me 9. I Won't Cry! That Someone Else Was You Good Nights and Happy Trails!!!!! Intro 2. The Way That He Sings demo 3. Hopefully demo 4. Bermuda Highway demo 5. Just Because I Do demo 6. Lowdown demo 7. At Dawn demo 8. I Needed It Most demo 9. Lead Me Father demo Phone Went West demo Chills demo Heartbreakin' Man demo The Bear demo Picture of You demo I Think I'm Going to Hell demo Butch Cassidy demo Lil Billy Live Nashvegas Magic Man ifolder Rapidshare Megaupload.
Wordless Chorus 2.
0コメント