The Battalion

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.thebatt.com/media/paper657/news/2005/10/28/Aggielife/Good-Morning.For.BlueCollar.Music-1037563.shtml

The Battalion - Aggielife
Issue: 10/28/05

-------------------------------------------------------

Good Morning for blue-collar music
By Aaron Alford

My Morning Jacket's records have always been good finds: a gem in the collections of country fans, mellow indie rockers or the jam band potheads. With "Z," they've made themselves even more valuable and appealing to a wider audience without selling their souls.

Their earlier records were exercises in reverb, soaked in just enough country twang to prove their Southern roots and enough Creedence Clearwater Revival to get your dad to admit that they're OK, though singer Jim James' voice was sometimes lost in the mix - like another over-tracked and over-reverbed guitar. It gave off a chillingly washy and comfortable vibe.

That element is still in "Z," but now it's played down to support the best songs My Morning Jacket has ever written. The bass is more front-and-center in the mix, and James' vocals are discernible and just plain good. The whole band looks like they could be bricklayers or Wal-Mart shopping-cart collectors, which is nice. This is really good music written and played by real people (or at least more real than those guys that prance into their parents' closets wearing their girlfriend's designer jeans and raid their dad's old college clothes to complete just the right ensemble to look '70s chic).

Looking and sounding like you came from a more "real" decade does not prove anything. My Morning Jacket is evidence. Posers could scoff at their unkempt hair and scraggly beards, all the while knowing they'd never be able to write a song like "Off the Record," the standout track and obvious single of "Z." MMJ doesn't hit a single open. There are three guitar hooks in the song that will probably stay with you until your son raids your closet to look 2005 chic. The album is a welcome victim of the increasing reggae influence MMJ has let creep into their songs, apparent from the first notes of album opener "Wordless Chorus."

"Into the Woods" is a great example of the group's quirkiness. The guts of the track are a familiar merry-go-round keyboard waltz adorned with huge slides on a lap steel that inject an adult dose of Kentucky. The choir at the end just cranks up the weirdness but simply sounds great, and even a little spooky, with a creepy "Pet Sounds" guitar part matching the melody.

James is simply a great singer with a style that doesn't rely on perfect pitch or perfect anything, for that matter, much like his band. He sounds like your buddy that sings the best of all your friends, so you let him sing. And that's precisely what My Morning Jacket is: a group of friends that started a band, figured out what each one did best and then went from there. Those are the best kinds of bands in the world. And I'll be damned if they don't sound amazing.