My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges

Evil Urges (2008, Red) My Morning Jacket's fifth studio album. ***

This review hurts to write, mainly because My Morning Jacket has received a vast amount of critical praise this year, the leaders of that movement being Rolling Stone. Even recently they gave the album four stars, their symbol (as well as mine) for excellence. Unfortunately, I did not find the album to be so, instead I found it to be good, because I was honetly bored through a good deal of it.

I've heard My Morning Jacket before, and I have to say they may be the biggest waste of talent around right now. They delve more and more into their experimental side as their albums progress; 2005's Z marked a turning point from the band with its soul and funk concoctions. And on Evil Urges it goes even further, with the first three songs being a whirlwind of experimental rock. The title track shows Jim James busting falsetto like no one's business, as the song shifts from electronica-funk with a killer bassline to Yes prog rock. Then there's the unorthodox "Highly Suspicious," a Prince-delivered hard-rock song similar to something Nick Cave might try. All of the beginning is wonderfully strange and fresh, with music impossible to define: is it hard pop? Progressive alternative? Rush meets Prince meets Pink Floyd? But the attraction is lost when it slides into the country/southern rock stylings that eat up the majority of the album. Simply put, those cuts are dry, uneventful, and downright boring. It's a shame that this happened, because an entire album full of songs like "Evil Urges" would blow me away. Oh, and the cover art sucks, too.