Z Review: St. Petersburg Times

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/04/Artsandentertainment/Audio_files.shtml

My Morning Jacket, Z (ATO/RCA) Louisville-based My Morning Jacket earns all sorts of designations from music writers - everything from Southern rock meets Radiohead to comparisons to psychedelic rockers the Flaming Lips. That's because the group has perfected a layered, psychedelic sound and image of its own, sprinkled with enough hippy-dippy vibes and mussed hair to become a favorite on the jam scene. But, and listen all you jam-band-averse listeners, My Morning Jacket doesn't get bogged down by the self-indulgent noodling that so characterizes the genre. Well, at least not on their recorded stuff.

Z, the band's fourth disc, continues in that big ol' melodious manner with the whistling, expansive It Beats 4 You and the chiming What a Wonderful Man, in which singer Jim James' reedy voice sinks beneath a propulsive swirl of guitar. As self-contained entities, the songs on Z can feel epic indeed, especially Into the Woods, which builds slowly on a drizzle of carnivalesque organ and wonky imagery until it swells into an all-out shanty, complete with echoes of voices. But as a whole the 10-song affair is lean and efficient. Or, in other words, a not unnecessarily unfocused way to indulge the band's jammy instincts. B+

[dragonboy]

B+?!!
If Z is a B+ then all of the D's I got in school should have been at least C+'s.
(drunk logic  [smiley=bier.gif] [smiley=drunk.gif] !!)