We all have urges. Some are good, others can be evil. My Morning Jacket seems to do their best to flesh out those urges to be taken in by your ears.
If you miss the fellows that created the haunted melodies on Tennessee Fire and At Dawn, then flexed a bit on It Still Moves and picked up some press on “Z”, have no fear. Evil Urges is both haunted at times, yet boldly moving forward at others.
Fans of the very early material might find it tough to digest the first three tracks. “Evil Urges” has some good funk and a very cool breakdown section, then “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream” would do better on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots with that bopping bass line and “Highly Suspicious” is where we find Jim James hitting his Prince-like falsetto, he should cover “Kiss”.
Beyond those we move in to the traditional sound of the group. Tunes like “I’m Amazed” shine musically and “Librarian” paints a vivid picture of a schoolboy crush. “Aluminum Park” and “Remnants” are the big rock anthems of the record, whereas the other songs are standard mellow listening that you would expect from these boys.
This record does sound like a great blend of mellow old stuff and some funky new horizons. If you take in to consideration all the festivals My Morning Jacket has played, not to mention that I saw them perform with the Boston Pops live, you can hear a lot of those influences coming to life right here.
I really enjoyed “Z” and this album picks up on its heels and continues to move the band forward. Although I do think they could have a little more guitar dueling, for now I’m happy with the urges they seem to have satisfied.
