Journal Sentinel article

[my_evening_jacket]

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/onwisconsin/music/sep03/173733.asp


Jackets possess own genre
By GEMMA TARLACH
Journal Sentinel pop music critic
Last Updated: Sept. 30, 2003
Never judge a band by its hairstyle.

The impressively hirsute members of My Morning Jacket headbanged like a main stage Metalfest act throughout their 75-minute set Monday night at the Rave Bar, but the band's sound is anything but thrash.

The Jacketeers don't fit within any genre but their own.

Too freewheeling to be radio-oriented, too judicious in their noodling to be a jam band, the Kentucky quintet offer an intoxicating meld of Southern-fried classic rock, heart-on-a-sleeve "Pet Sounds"-era pop, the occasional expedition into sludgey neo-psychedelia and a wry sense of humor.

The band opened with "Mahgeetah," the lead track of its recently released third album, "It Still Moves." The unabashedly sweet pop song combines the laid-back vibe of Jimmy Buffett with chiming guitars and front man Jim James' melancholic voice.

The singer and guitarist is often compared to Neil Young, and with good reason - there are uncanny similarities in range and timbre that are only enhanced by James' penchant for country-rock melodies.

Perhaps in a smirking nod to the band's buzz as Classic Rock Resurrected, James rolled out a solo cover of Kansas' "Dust in the Wind" for the band's second song. His guitar work was faithful to the tune, but his voice warbled like an over-earnest character in the folk movement send-up "A Mighty Wind." The joke was up when the singer burst into laughter halfway through the song and had trouble continuing.

Bushy-headed James, the band's principal songwriter, is also clearly its leader. But there's no weak spot in the rest of the lineup, a fact borne out by the set's tight musicianship and tasteful use of solos, even on "I Will Sing You Songs," a meandering, stretch-out slice of psychedelia that would tempt lesser musicians to noodle ad nauseum.

In fact, the overall structure of the band's set suggests a maturity much needed by some of its peers. By keeping the evening relatively short and delivering only its best material, the band gave a focused, faultless performance that never felt indulgent or tedious.

The encore began with James alone with his acoustic guitar, this time for a gorgeous, haunting version of "Golden," off the new album, followed by an audience request for one of the band's early tunes, "The Bear."

But it was the following song and show closer "Phone Went West," a full band number, that best represented My Morning Jacket. The song, from the 2001 disc "At Dawn," fed off a feel-good reggae beat and slowly built up to full-on catharsis by guitar in a jam equal parts Lynyrd Skynyrd and Nirvana.

E-mail Gemma Tarlach at gtarlach@journalsentinel.com.




From the Oct. 1, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel