Review

The logical synthesis of the Flaming Lips’ lysergic fever dreams and Allman Brothers’ chops-flaunting excursions to the center of your mind.
Reverb. Neil Young sucking down a joint while warbling about the lonely ladies of the Laurel Canyon. More reverb. The netherworld where the Black Crowes’ bulimic bad-ass boogie collides with Music from Big Pink. Still more reverb. Dave Gilmour on holiday in Ibiza, comfortably numb and obscured by clouds. The Church of the Sacred Reverb, led by your pastor, the Reverend Jim James. Glory to you, reverb.

These are some first-blush reactions to My Morning Jacket’s third album and 2003 major-label debut, It Still Moves. Simply put: it’s the spacious sound of southern psychedelia; the logical synthesis of the Flaming Lips’ lysergic fever dreams and the Allman Brothers’ chops-flaunting excursions to the center of your mind (circa Eat a Peach) filtered through the country-boy-fer-life sensibilities of frontman Jim James, whose high/lonesome wail is bathed in so much sonic echo that it sometimes sounds like it was recorded down in his native Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave.

For all the accomplishments represented on It Still Moves (including some of the best compositions of James’ career: the picture-perfect ballad “Golden,” the dreamlike standstill of “I Will Sing You Songs”), the album represented a breaking point with MMJ Mach I. James’ guitarist cousin Johnny Quaid and original keyboardist Danny Cash both left the band after its recording, clearing the way for the extraterrestrial explorations of 2005’s Z and the group’s next-phase admixture of not quite alt-country and not quite alt-rock. Until proven otherwise, It Still Moves is still their masterpiece.