The best moments from My Morning Jacket's eponymously titled ninth album are the closest thing to capturing the band's intertwined energy and jammier aesthetics since the late 2000's. This record in a way sums up My Morning Jacket as a band while celebrating the band's 20+ years of success and relevancy.
The consistent success of My Morning Jacket remains as one of the more remarkable bands who have been active for over 20 years. From Louisville Kentucky, My Morning Jacket's sound of folk, country, psychedelic, and southern rock is one-of-a-kind in the grand scope of 2000's indie, folk, rock, and psychedelia. Frontman Jim James has always had a perfectionist mindset or that's what I hear in the band's music. There's quite a bit of attention to detail whenever you hear the production, layered instrumentation or performances. James' sense of positivity through love and togetherness through his lyrics has always been one of MMJ's most notable qualities. The best material from MMJ typically come from the performances in which the band members are feeding off of each other's energy. The band is not just celebrated for their studio output, but they are even more with their live performances. Unfortunately I haven't been able to see MMJ live but hearing live recordings are always a treat. They've successfully captured this energy in past records and songs, specifically like fan faves "One Big Holiday" or "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2." They definitely tend to jam and extend songs through their live sets. The band is considered a "jam band" whether you love or hate that term. "Jam band" is such a negative description among many critics but I don't find it negative at all. I enjoy it when bands jam for longer periods of time. I casually enjoy bands like Grateful Dead and Phish, so sue me. I even thoroughly enjoy this current state that Vampire Weekend is in, which is the fact that they are essentially a jam band now, imagery and all. I totally embrace that and will gladly do so.
I specifically mention these jammier aspects within their music because of the band's new album. The ninth album, eponymously titled My Morning Jacket, follows up last year's The Waterfall II, a sequel album to the 2015 album taken from those original sessions. My Morning Jacket is quite different from The Waterfall I and II and rightfully so. This is technically the band's first new material since those sessions roughly seven years ago. This record in a way sums up My Morning Jacket as a band while celebrating the band's 20+ years of success and relevancy. The album's general theme is mainly about how technology has encompassed our entire lives for better or for worse (unsurprisingly, it's for the worse). The record captures the band's live energy with jams that extend into seven, eight, and nine minutes and has shorter, more palatable pop moments that brightly shimmer with light synths and harmonies. The jammier moments are the most memorable spots on the record. The seven minute "In Color" is a ballad that extends into heavy harmonious guitar shredding. I'm glad it simply wasn't the ballad it starts and ends being, otherwise it would've been a dull moment in the album. "The Devil's In the Details" is the album's best track, reaching over nine minutes in length. Compared to "In Color" though, this track actually has genuinely moving and captivating balladry with a nice vocal quality from Jim James. The nine minutes runtime is actually worth it in my opinion; the slow and gradual progressions are really rewarding if you're patient enough to hear them.
"Least Expected" is a certified banger. The layered psychedelic instrumentation of guitars, harmonies, keys, and percussion play out like a rainbow of kaleidoscopic color. "Complex" has a very satisfyingly heavy and in your face instrumental coming straight out of the Jack White playbook. It could've been on White's Boarding House Reach if he sung on it instead of James to say the very least. My Morning Jacket isn't full of bangers from front to back though. There are moments where I'm scratching my head a bit... moments that seem like they are redundant within the MMJ catalog. I never really could get into the lead single "Regularly Scheduled Programming." The lyrics are a bit too general for me, almost like these themes of technology saturation within our society is over-explained or over-analyzed? It almost sounds like they're spoon-feeding me these themes. I agree with the sentiment but lyrics like "programming to drown out how we feel" and "screen time addiction, replacing real life and love" are too on the nose for me to truly appreciate. The instrumental felt too generic for me too. It's likable like the other songs but not memorable. The same goes for songs like "Never In the Real World" and "Lucky to Be Alive." These lyrical moments are too basic for me once again ("The technology came and stole my living again / Ain't nobody buying records no more") and the instrumentals are very boiler plate folk rock in the former and really plain synth leads in the latter. They could definitely be better with more interesting instrumentals rather than just following the LEGO instruction manual exactly as is. I enjoy the grooves and harmonies on "Love Love Love" but once you've heard the first thirty seconds, you've essentially heard the whole song already. I honestly am trying to knock the band for attempting these modern synths through their new music. They're trying something different and I respect them for it.
Negative remarks aside, a decent My Morning Jacket album is still a solid record within the genres of indie psychedelia and folk rock. The band have always been a driving talent meant to be seen and heard by their intertwining performances between the five members. The best moments from My Morning Jacket are the closest thing to capturing the band's intertwined energy and jammier aesthetics since the late 2000's on records like Evil Urges. They don't always work out where there are times when I feel like I'm listening to a modern and contemporary My Morning Jacket that's too neatly placed together. There are moments of brilliance, especially in the jammier and lengthier moments in the track listing. Overall though, My Morning Jacket is worth listening to all the way through regardless, especially if you're already a fan of the band. This could be a nice starter for newcomers too. This contains some of the band's most accessible material yet. It's like a well-oiled car with a new paint job and some new accessories. It may be a newer model that doesn't have the same qualities that we've loved from the original but you'll still have a fun time driving this thing. My Morning Jacket thankfully still sound like My Morning Jacket on their album My Morning Jacket. You got all that?
My Rating: 7 / 10
Favorite Songs: "The Devil's In the Details," "Least Expected," "Complex," "Penny for Your Thoughts," "In Color"