My Morning Jacket, "Circuital"

My Morning Jacket Take Their Own Sweet Time On the New “Circuital”

By The Burg Staff on Jun. 01, 2011

By Matt Ashare

My Morning Jacket do not sound like a band who are in even a little bit of a hurry to get anywhere on their new “Circuital,” the Louisville, Kentucky band’s sixth album in a dozen years. The disc actually features a song called — yes — “Slow Slow Tune,” a deliberate, willfully, and perhaps even a bit brilliantly ironically slow, slow tune that, with its psychedelic ambiance, its heavily reverbed guitars, and its au naturel production, brings to mind the Tommy James and the Shondells classic “Crimson and Clover.” “Slow/Not the meter of today/But I’m not singing format anyway/This slow, slow tune,” singer/guitarist Jim James (aka Yim Yames) lazily murmurs, winking affably and nodding knowingly before laying his meta-rock cards on the table with this verse: “You/Somewhere in the future listening/I hope the present for you’s glistening/With notes that ring so true/This slow, slow tune. . .”

James is holding a straight flush, and he knowest of what he speaketh: there really isn’t a single note that doesn’t ring “true” on “Circuital.” His awareness of that — reflected in both the snarled simplicity of his lyrics and the relaxed intensity of the songs themselves — is a big part of the pleasure of the MMJ vibe. And vibe, more than clever turns of phrase, musicianly displays, or hooks you’d pay to play, is what “Circuital” is all about. I mean, you gotta get four songs deep into the disc before James finally offers up a track with a trad verse/chorus/verse structure, the rootsy, fingerpicked, mostly acoustic alt-country “Wonderful (The Way I Feel).”

In most bands’ hands, the tune would be a throwaway — a gratuitous tip of the cowboy hat in the general direction of Gram Parsons and all his various and nefarious acolytes. But Jones and his MMJ crew (bassist “Two-Tone” Tommy, drummer Patrick Hallihan, and multi-instrumentalists Carl Broemel and Bo Koster) have mastered the art of the understated overstatement. “Wonderful (The Way I Feel),” for all its pedal steel whines, cursory rhymes (“I’m going where the living is easy/And the people are kind/A new state of mind”), and prosaic lines like “With the sun on my shoulder/And wind at my back/I will never grow older/At least not in my mind,” is more Southern than country, as in Terry Southern. And, once again, James unabashedly shows his hand: “I can learn from way back when/And still live right now,” he croons with a passion that suggests he means it.

The “way back when” My Morning Jacket conjure so vividly as they forge resolutely forward on “Circuital” brings to mind the bold and, at times, even reckless genre (ad)ventures of classic-rockers like the Stones, the Who, and the Beatles, once they’d established their brands, secured loyal fan bases, and taken to challenging their fans.

The title track, like most of the disc, takes time building up to its explosive hook. But the payoff — Pete Townshend powerchords paired with a very Neil Young guitar solo — is so worth the wait. One of the more immediately appealing tracks is a retro-funky in-joke titled “Holdin’ Onto Black Metal.” And layers of ethereal vocal harmonies, an insistent keyboard hook, and a muscular backbeat that keeps threatening to trip over itself on “The Day Is Coming” brings to mind something John Lennon might have thrown on the “White Album.”

Still, “Circuital” isn’t so much reverential as it is referential. Simply put, it’s the sound of a band transcending easy labels like “New Southern Rock” or “Alt-Rock Jam Band,” reaching beyond their so-called “country” roots, and having a good go at taking their own sweet time finding those notes that truly do ring, well . . . true.http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/my_morning_jacket_take_their_own_sweet_time_on_the_new_circuital