My Morning Jacket

Album review

As their last record, 2015's Waterfall, receded into the past, there was an increasing buzz about whether My Morning Jacket was still a band. At one point leader Jim James was even making noises about wanting to quit music altogether. But a series of shows in 2019 at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater convinced them to try again. Self-titled to symbolize a fresh start—a reset of their ambitions and musical direction—the new album, recorded in California by James at 64 Sound and Removador Fun Ranch West and mixed by James and Kevin Ratterman at Invisible Creature in Los Angeles, is a magnific yet detailed production that according to James seeks to hold onto the "reckless explosion of rock and roll." Too meticulous for any explosions and not quite the mélange of "discovery, revelation, and ecstatic catharsis" touted in their hyperbolic press kit, My Morning Jacket is still a welcome, well-crafted return to form of one of the most creative collectives writing and playing out today. The reality is that little has actually changed from the Waterfall days. Still at the heart of the band's success or failure is the quality of James' original songs and here, inspiration did not desert him. Always enamored of big productions, much of the album sounds like it involves larger forces than just the quintet of James, guitarist Carl Broemel, bassist Tom Blankenship, keyboardist Bo Koster and drummer Patrick Hallahan. In "Never in the Real World" cymbals crash, a chorus of background singers add heft and James indulges his affinity for fashioning an echoey, Dylanesque "Lay Lady Lay" quality to his vocals. His love for showy, flamboyant productions is on full display in the chugging groove of "Love Love Love" which features massed female background vocals and a choppy, shrieking solo from Broemel. While the album's heaviest rocker, "Complex" is dragged down at the end by a slowed tape of James voice sounding bullfroggy and monstrous, the album's catchiest melody and most fully realized number, "Least Expected," has a light, appealing bounce. A look back at the band's alt-country roots, "I Never Could Get Enough" mixes a classic country feel with the modern SoCal folksiness of a picked acoustic guitar and texture-adding synths. And in "The Devil's in the Details" James even ventures into social critique: "Growing up at the mall/ Amidst the fruits of slavery/ We all stand complicit in the greed/ Going to Sephora /To find a different face/ With enough paint I'll disappear/ Without a trace." More of a reaffirmation of their talents and interests than any reset or new beginning, My Morning Jacket is a reminder that this accomplished quintet has horizons limited only by James' imagination. © Robert Baird/Qobuz