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(36 votes, average: 3.14 out of 5)
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My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
Reviewed by Mike

It’s been three years since My Morning Jackets last album, Z. Evil Urges was recorded partly in Manhattan and Colorado, and is the first My Morning Jacket album to have vocals not performed solely by Jim James.

1. Evil Urges: 3.0

The song starts off with a similar vibe to Radiohead’s Subterranean Homesick Alien, although a bit more organic. Unfortunately, it immediately steers into some sort of tropicalia sound, with poor vocals, both in terms of energy, quality and enthusiasm. This isn’t mailed in, this *is* the post office.

2. Touch Me I’m Going To Scream: 2.0

Remember that hippie jam band back in the 90’s that sounded like a cross between Blues Traveler and Phish? Remember how everyone said they were going to be big as they passed around a bong? Remember how they said they were entering their “trippy” phase? Yeah.

3. Highly Suspicious: 0.0

Enter at your own risk.

4. I’m Amazed: 4.0

A big chunky drum beat opens the song, along with some Dave Matthews style noodling. There are some triumphant sounding chord changes, but the song loses the plot soon after. The melody is as familiar as your own feet. The guitar solo is hackneyed and a complete retread.

5. Thank You: 2.0

Thank You enters K-Lite FM territory right form the start. Sadly, it stays there the entire time. There’s enough cheese here for a Green Bay Packers tailgate party.

6. Sec Walkin’: 7.0

More cheese, but at least it’s done reasonably well this time. There’s some great interplay between a steel guitar and an acoustic. There’s Witchy Woman-like background vocals which add an interesting dimension. Unfortunately it seems like they ran out of ideas halfway through the song.

Demon eyes, Demon eyes
Are wathcing everywhere

7. Two Halves: 3.0

This song is tainted by some increbibly bad lyrics. Any momentum the song had musically is crushed.

Twenty one everything stays in place
Forty one somethings start to fade
When you’re so young you wanna be older
And when your older, you want the body you have now

That’s deep.

8. Librarian: 8.8

A beautiful acoustic guitar opens Librarian. It’s a comforting sound, a darker twist on the Youngbloods. Easily the best song on Evil Urges.

9. Look At You: 1.0

Syrupy, off-kilter, forced, cheesy.

10. Aluminum Park: 5.0

Imagine Weed Party by Band of Horses, but remove the enthusiasm.
Wait…wasn’t Band of Horses supposed to be the My Morning Jacket imitator?

11. Remnants: 2.0

Remember that episode of The Sopranos where Christopher and Adrianna were trying to get that bad rock band signed, and the only thing the music exec wanted was Adrianna’s ass? Yeah.

12. Smokin’ From Shooting: 8.7

One of the better songs on the album. There’s a synergistic moment where the smoking guns line interplays with the steel guitar that is truly sublime. The song builds into a powerful climax with a George Harrison style guitar solo.

13. Touch Me I’m going To Scream Part II: 6.0

Sonically interesting beginning with intertwining keyboards. The rest of the song can’t seem to make up it’s mind, but what it lacks in focus it makes up for in beauty.

14. Good Intentions: 0.0

Pointless six seconds of nothing. We will use the editing foresight My Morning Jacket didn’t and not include this track in our final score.

Album Total: 4.0/10

Response Keywords after hearing this album:

Boring, forced, plodding, cheesy, try-hard, derivative, inconsistent, unfocused

My Morning Jacket has been building expectations for years due to an outstanding live act and a handful of excellent songs. Since Z, there have been tell tale signs of a band losing their grip on their studio abilities. What once sounded like a brilliant band now sounds like a bunch of session musicians hanging out, veering into jam band-lite territory. It’s clear to me that My Morning Jacket is becoming sort of the Allman Brothers of our time, starting off with several quality records and maintaining a career based largely on above average live performances. However, they don’t quite have the back catalogue to compete with that sort of longevity.

The biggest problems with Evil Urges are a very refined and MOR engineering/producton level, inconsistent song quality and an overall lack of spark or fire. Hopefully, this promising band’s next release will be less bloated and more focused, both in terms of songwriting and production/engineering.

I’m not going to insert the usual “buy it here” link for this album. Instead, download Smokin’ From Shootin’ and Librarian from iTunes and save your money for Get Together: The Essential Youngbloods

You can buy that album here:

Get Together: The Essential Youngbloods