My Morning Jacket, Z
MMJ expands, both sonically and texturally.
A fecund, spacious haze seems to follow My Morning Jacket everywhere (and I don't mean that peculiar Bonnaroo smog either). Ever since their debut, the band has been deploying spring-reverb for all facets of their sound, from Jim James'yelp to the peculiar corners the band so skillfully carpenters. So while the echo is always evident on Z, with the help of new keyboardist Bo Koster My Morning Jacket now emphasize the “spring” of said equation, with their sprightliest, most pliant set of studio songs to date. Skankable skips and R&B shuffles cast bright lights across their grooves, the prevalent haze and hanging vines cleared just enough to reveal the architecture beneath. A calliope organ pinwheels into “Anytime”'s anthemic drive, while the radio-friendly “Off the Record” shows off a newfound reggae lilt.
Rapturous rock remains their forte, though. New Testament allusions lay just below the surface on songs like “What a Wonderful Man He Was” and “Gideon,” both songs as ebullient as anything their closest counterparts, the Flaming Lips, ever encapsulated. And am I the only one that hears Eddie Rabbit's “Step By Step” in “Lay Low”? A cathartic crescendo makes closer “Dondante” feel mountainous, the music slowly dissipating at disc's end like so many clouds.
