My Morning Jacket- Evil Urges

My Morning Jacket are many things to many people. Like contemporaries such as Wilco, who crossover between many different crowds (closet music critic/bloggers, jam band followers, too-cool-for-school indie rockers, etc.), the band threatens to lose or neglect fans by changing their sound too much. Wilco overcomes this by not really giving a crap what their fans want, while My Morning Jacket are currently overcoming it by putting something for everyone on their albums. Their Z is a fantastic album, and even though it was the first time those outside the Southern Rock/jam band/classic rock axis took notice of them, it still had enough pure guitar fury to keep the attention of the latter. To put it succinctly, 'Lay Low' tears it up.

Problematically, My Morning Jacket expand their palette even further on Evil Urges, with none of the laser-sharp focus and inspired experimental pop that Z showcased. At 47 minutes, it was the band's shortest album, and while brevity may not be a sign of quality, it was in that case. Evil Urges is scattershot and varied, but it never hangs together as a whole. It's as if every few songs the album restarts--first it's funky, then it's blue eyed country soul, then it's fist pumping rock, then it's spacey and prog rock-y. This is similar to the problem that so many jam bands have: they want to showcase their songs on studio albums, their variety of styles, but also their ability to improvise. Thus they release overly long albums that are too much for newcomers to grasp, and too dry and short for the diehard to love. In My Morning Jacket's case, the problem is that they are now attempting too much on a single album, and none of it is particularly good. Z was 10 tracks, but those 10 tracks pack in a great deal of variety and inventiveness. Evil Urges only has 4 more songs, and 8 more minutes, but feels bloated and unfocused.

Most worryingly of all, the addition of funk to the band's palette is a disaster. 'Highly Suspicious' is quite possibly the worst thing they've ever recorded. It feels like a bald faced attempt by the band to inject some humor and kitsch into their music, which is a fine idea in theory, but in execution is awful. Jim James has one of those "raise the hair on the back of your neck" voices when he sticks to his brisk tenor or his spacey, reverb soaked wolf howls, but when he tries to sound like Prince, it's simply embarrassing. Title track and opening song 'Evil Urges' fares a bit better by combining the band's various musical strands with this new vocal style, but it's such an odd, long winded choice to begin the album I don't know what they were thinking.

Mainly, as I've struggled to get a handle on Evil Urges, the impression that this album is one for the fans takes shape. As it compares so unfavorably to Z, this is the only conclusion I can come to. Assuming you are a hardcore fan of the band, you'll undoubtedly love this. Assuming you're like me, and thought Z was a great album but you're still not sold on the band, then Evil Urges will do nothing to convince you otherwise.