Okonokos Reviews

[marino13]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/reviews/story/0,,1871735,00.html


The next 10
My Morning Jacket, Okonokos

*** Esteemed space-rock hairies follow in the footsteps of Neil Young

Paul Mardles
Sunday September 17, 2006
Observer Music Monthly

Since 1998, Kentucky's My Morning Jacket have combined the sonic excesses of the old school with the sensibility of cosmic noughties rock. Fitting then that their filmed live album, Okonokos, takes its cue from Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps - a film/gig notable for its absurdly large stage props - and veers, much like Young, between fragility and brawn. Of the two CDs the first in particular is superb, chiefly thanks to 'Wordless Chorus' and 'It Beats 4 U' on which they bridge the chasm separating soul from rock and make their poor contemporaries sound like leaden-footed oafs.
3/5 stars

[MyLifeISought]

E! Online gives it a B+

"Our Review:
This hairy Americana rock band has a reputation for its knockout live shows, which have been known to stretch out over three hours. And while it's nearly impossible to fully get the group's beardy wonderfulness from a recording, the brawny material on Okonokos, the band's live double-disc set recorded live at San Francisco's Fillmore, compensates with added guitar solos, new song arrangements and singer Jim James' stunning falsetto--particularly on the opening track, "Wordless Chorus." From there, things get better with a stellar stretch through the middle of disc one and the hammering one-two punch of "Dondante" and "Run Thru" on the second disc. As concert recordings go, this is one of the best."

http://www.eonline.com/Reviews/Facts/Music/RevID/0,1107,3810,00.html

[tomEisenbraun]

new song arrangements?

[ali]

beardy wonderfulness!

i think that sums it up in two words!!
 :)

[MyLifeISought]

Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/15609541.htm
My Morning Jacket's haunted, reverberant rock actually improves in the concert setting of "Okonokos: The Live Album" (RCA, B+).

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/living/15609541.htm?source=rss&channel=dailynews_living

My Morning Jacket's haunted, reverberant rock actually improves in the concert setting of "Okonokos: The Live Album" (RCA, B+).

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/09/25/45188741ea05c

My Morning Jacket is successful in their first live album effort Okonokos
By Tripp Laino

September 25, 2006

When a band is known for its incredible live performances, it only makes sense for them to release a live album showcasing their talent. It took My Morning Jacket four albums and seven years to figure this out, but their first foray into this realm is an excellent one.

Okonokos was recorded over two nights at the historic Fillmore Auditorium, where a veritable who's who of musicians have performed, including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and even Otis Redding.

"One Big Holiday" opens with a simple hi-hat solo, but moves into veritable one-man-band guitar player/saxophonist/vocalist Carl Broemel's excellent guitar work and Jim James' pleading vocals. Put simply, it's just a great rock song.

In terms of live experimentation, the most entertaining track on Okonokos is "Off The Record." While the song clocks in at a relatively short seven minutes for an improv piece, "Off the Record" is where the band finds a groove meshing drums, keys, bass and guitar together in perfect fashion. The five members play off one another to take their song to another level, the quintessential example of what a good live band does best.

"Dondante" begins with James' shrill vocals over a driving drum and bass back beat, but the song expands into 11 minutes of a Broemel solo, driving an ordinary studio track to an epic level. James' vocals are eerie but highly effective at conveying his emotions, "all that ever mattered will some day turn back to batter like a joke", making this track one of the album's best.

The best ballad on the album is "At Dawn," an offer of James' best Bono impression backed by the band's best U2 impression. The song opens with an almost trance-like beat, and the pleasant vocals and instrumentation mesh harmoniously to form a pleasant break from the louder tracks.

MMJ shows off a little of their southern rock roots on "Dancefloors," culminating in a mass solo and breakdown a la Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird." It also serves as the springboard to the excellent close of this album, as "Dancefloors," "Anytime" and "Mahgeeta" create a solid end for this live adventure.

While MMJ's first attempt at a live album comes off well, Okonokos lacks what makes live albums so much fun: the banter of the musicians and the crowd. Without this key ingredient, the album might as well be hastily ordered studio tracks with some cheering added in postproduction. These knocks aside, Okonokos is an excellent introduction to one of the more entertaining touring bands today.

Contact reporter Tripp Laino at diversions@dbk.umd.edu.

[marino13]

You lost me at Danny Cash.  WTF??!!

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/38749/My_Morning_Jacket_Okonokos

 
My Morning Jacket
Okonokos
[ATO; 2006]
Rating: 7.2




Reportedly, My Morning Jacket hate being labeled Southern rock. Who can blame them? Their ambitions transcend genre tags, and besides, Louisville, the band's hometown, is located in Northern Kentucky and is arguably more Midwestern than Southern. So it can't be a coincidence that for their first-ever live album, curiously called Okonokos, My Morning Jacket chose to record their performance at classic-rock homestead the Fillmore West in San Francisco, about as far west as you can get from Kentucky without getting wet. Their aim seems to be to prove that their brand of rural classic rock, abandoned-silo reverb, and farmyard psychedelia can connect anywhere across the U.S.

If they're trying to avoid the Southern rock tag, what are they striving for? Okonokos shows the band trying to find out. Z positioned them as one of few contemporary bands that could appeal to a broad swath of the populace, from indie kids to frat boys to soccer moms to older listeners wondering why they don't make 'em like Led Zeppelin IV anymore. On stage, MMJ shed their regional associations and their signature reverb, but they're still an American band, reinventing classic rock as a bluegrassroots movement. The Skynyrdisms remain, but My Morning Jacket have added Zep-heavy riffs, Springsteenian grandeur, Bonnaroo-ready jams, and breezy SoCal pop into the mix, while retaining an enigmatic presence reminiscent of earliest R.E.M.

So the music on Okonokos never sounds vague or really even placeless, but instead has a jolt of fresh energy. The current lineup may be the band's best and most dynamic yet: disciplined enough to love the sound of every instrument clicking into place, as on "One Big Holiday", but also restless enough to keep the songs constantly shifting. The grandiose "It Beats 4 U" launches into its strange whistling bridge (reminiscent of Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain) before closing out with Patrick Hallahan's driving snare-led groove. It's a pretty neat sequence, but never feels showy or disconnected. Similarly, the reggae strut of "Off the Record" dissipates into a long, moody outro that swirls around the stageset flora, sounding looser and less directed than the studio version, as if the band made that transition on a collective whim.

My Morning Jacket's move away from a regional sound has been gradually progressing from the rural sounds of At Dawn and The Tennessee Fire-- with their jumbles of guitar, banjo, harmonica, and reverb-- to the noodlier It Still Moves and the more electric, eclectic Z. So it's no surprise that the older material on Okonokos sounds most revitalized since it must be updated most dramatically to fit the band's increasingly expansive sound. Standouts "The Way That He Sings", "Xmas Curtain", and "Lowdown" are chirpy and bright without their original reverb. And nothing else on these two discs beats "O Is the One That Is Real" for its fierce rock assault, with singer Jim James' best performance of the evening propelled by Hallahan's slicing high hat and Danny Cash's noir keyboards.

Nevertheless, Okonokos still feels strangely unfulfilling, never quite living up to My Morning Jacket's reputation as one of the best live acts around. James botches the big moment on opener "Wordless Chorus", overselling those climactic yawps so they come out like out-of-tune brays. "Runthru" has an enormous riff that works well in this setting, but that theatrical grandeur, as well as the explosion of distortion, only underscores how silly the song is: "Oh shit run," James sings, with complete seriousness, "oh shit run through the ghetto." "Gideon" jams aimlessly, and "Mahgeeta" never seems to end.

Any live show will inevitably have crests and valleys, but besides these specific performances, Okonokos disappoints on a more general level: It too seldom sounds like an actual live album. There's almost no interaction between the performers and their audience: James never addresses the crowd and crowd noise is mostly inaudible except during the intervals between songs. Furthermore, the set list favors recent songs over older materials, which means there are fewer opportunities for dramatic reinterpretations. Aside from a few moments when they achieve a barreling momentum or hit a particularly tight groove, My Morning Jacket follow the prescribed routes set by the studio versions, sounding occasionally more intense but too often predictable in their course. These are minor complaints, as that respectable rating attests, but taken together, these shortcomings prevent listeners from getting any real sense of who these musicians are individually and collectively beyond what they could have learned from listening to the studio albums.

-Stephen M. Deusner, September 26, 2006

[LaurieBlue]

http://music.monstersandcritics.com/reviews/article_1205036.php/Album_Review_My_Morning_Jacket_-_Okonokos

It`s high time one of America`s best live bands committed its stage show to disc, and 'Okonokos' delivers as powerful a wake-up call to the ears as seeing MMJ in the flesh.

Vocalist Jim James lets it rip on "What a Wonderful Man," "One Big Holiday" and the spine-tingling "Gideon," while the band jams "Dondante" and "Steam Engine" into 11-minute rock epics. MMJ also proves its versatility on more intimate material such as "Golden" and "I Will Sing You Songs," which is handled with the finesse of players twice their age.

The track list rightfully goes heavy on last year`s outstanding "Z" (opener "Wordless Chorus," the jolly "Off the Record"). But it also dips into the back catalog for delightful obscurities such as "O Is the One That Is Real" and the countrified "Xmas Curtain." More please!

'Okonokos' is now available at Amazon. Visit the music database for more information and a complete track listing.

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1541722/20060926/index.jhtml?headlines=true

Morning Glory: Cameron Crowe faves and former Boston Pops collaborators My Morning Jacket remind us what makes their live shows so memorable with Okonokos: Double Live Album, mixed by Bob Dylan buddy Michael Brauer and mastered by the legendary Bob Ludwig. The set actually precedes a more comprehensive document of MMJ's explosive concert. Let the press-release description do the talking: "Inspired by a fairytale-like performance in Tokyo, the band decided to adorn their mysterious set with qualities akin to an old growth forest, capturing the essence of a timeless, nameless, anonymous place. The theme of straddling the line between the surreal and the actual is introduced at the film's prologue when a cast of characters draped in Victorian-era costume, along with one alpaca, are introduced." Right on.

[primushead]

Nevertheless, Okonokos still feels strangely unfulfilling, never quite living up to My Morning Jacket's reputation as one of the best live acts around. James botches the big moment on opener "Wordless Chorus", overselling those climactic yawps so they come out like out-of-tune brays. "Runthru" has an enormous riff that works well in this setting, but that theatrical grandeur, as well as the explosion of distortion, only underscores how silly the song is: "Oh shit run," James sings, with complete seriousness, "oh shit run through the ghetto." "Gideon" jams aimlessly, and "Mahgeeta" never seems to end.

-Stephen M. Deusner, September 26, 2006

I hate pitchfork...so...much.

Run Thru "Silly"?

Gideon 'jams' aimlessly?  That's the most un-jammy song they've ever done!

Magheeta never seems to end?  

This guy sucks.   :P

[Nikkogino]

I hate pitchfork...so...much.

Run Thru "Silly"?

Gideon 'jams' aimlessly?  That's the most un-jammy song they've ever done!

Magheeta never seems to end?  

This guy sucks.   :P

I guess we should be happy they gave it above a 3.0 knowing pitchfork.  Usually when a band starts to get halfway popular they dock them 5 or 6 points.  Pitchfork are pretentious fucks.

[marino13]

I guess we should be happy they gave it above a 3.0 knowing pitchfork.  Usually when a band starts to get halfway popular they dock them 5 or 6 points.  Pitchfork are pretentious fucks.

Stephen M. Douche-ner  had Danny Cash on keyboards, so he obviously hasn't a clue.  If he had mentioned the other guitartist, I would wager he would have misfired on Carl as well.  The "Gideon" comment takes the cake.  

[sweatboard]

That pitchfork review SUCKS aimlessly!!!!!

Couldn't they get someone halfway capable of doing an informed review of a MMJ release at this point?  

Well, one thing we know for sure, if Band Of Horses releases a live disc this year it will top Okonokos by at least two points.   :-/

[MyLifeISought]

Pitchfork gave the Flaming Lips' "Zaireeka" a 0.0 because they thought the concept was dumb. Half the time i read it just for laughs

[primushead]

Well, one thing we know for sure, if Band Of Horses releases a live disc this year it will top Okonokos by at least two points.   :-/

For sure.  Because, you know, like, Band of Horses is better because they aren't famous yet. :P

[sweatboard]

On a side note, if I hear one more fucking indie hipster proclaim that this band "finally got it right on Z" while completly dismissing thier entire back catalouge, I'm going to puke all over thier chuck taylors.  

[primushead]

On a side note, if I hear one more fucking indie hipster proclaim that this band "finally got it right on Z" while completly dismissing thier entire back catalouge, I'm going to puke all over thier chuck taylors.  

Hahahahhaahhahahahhahahahahahhaha!!!!!

[tomEisenbraun]

Pitchfork gave the Flaming Lips' "Zaireeka" a 0.0 because they thought the concept was dumb. Half the time i read it just for laughs

These people are serious?

If the end of Gideon does not tear your head apart, you are almost not human.

"Runthru" has an enormous riff that works well in this setting, but that theatrical grandeur, as well as the explosion of distortion, only underscores how silly the song is: "Oh shit run," James sings, with complete seriousness, "oh shit run through the ghetto."

Fuck. Off.

first off, the lyrics may sound ridiculous, but if you had to imagine one of those songs for where you find yourself in the frickin wrong part of town at 3am in the morning and realize how "wrong" of a part of town it is, you understandthis song. the lyrics may seem ridiculous, but make perfect sense in that scenario. the whole "oh no, we have to get out of here quick." maybe you don't even need to experience it, because i'm almost certain that i never have.

Get your heads out of your asses Pitchfork. Grow an imagination, and a better staff of writers who actually love music, and not the idea of a band being under the radar in order to classify them as "good".

In the realm of subjectivity, these guys take the cake for creating the biggest need to understand just what that is.

[Ghosts_on_TV]

Remember...when we whine, pitchfork wins. :P