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Critic's pick: My Morning Jacket

By Walter Tunis Contributing Music Critic

My Morning Jacket

Evil Urges

We saw it coming with Z, the 2005 album that dragged Louisville's My Morning Jacket out of the psychedelic reverb cellar that had become a lasting comfort zone. Instead of the hazy, Southern-brewed psychedelia that Jim James and Co. had designed to ward off specific categorization, Z rose to the surface. The melodies were more inviting, and the vocals were light-years cleaner. Yet the band's sense of rock 'n' roll mystery was left intact.

As it turns out, Z was a warm-up for the mammoth stylistic shift that tears through Evil Urges. For those enamored of Z's steady move toward daylight, brace yourself. Summer pours into this album in the forms of ambient electronica, Prince-ly funk and even a few acoustic pop reveries. But if you're among the legions who still think Louisville's top rock 'n' roll export is best appreciated under veils of reverb and hippie insulation, take notice. That ship has sailed. Evil Urges finds My Morning Jacket on an entirely different continent.

The title song, which opens the album, eases the transition somewhat. It's a slow-brewing, almost menacing meditation that James sings in a ghostly falsetto. Ever since I heard the band perform it on Saturday Night Live more than a month ago, its melody has been bouncing around in the ol' brainbox. It's that infectious.

The changes rush in like low tide on Touch Me I'm Going to Scream, Pt. 1. One has never been prompted to label My Morning Jacket's music as ”summery,“ but that's the feel here, with James' vocals sandwiched between layers of chilled synthesizers that propel and cushion the song's inviting groove. Pool music from Jim James — who knew?

From there, Evil Urges rocks all over the place. Aluminum Park shuts down the electronics for a back-yard guitar breakdown that recalls — at least, initially — the newer records of The Old 97s, and I'm Amazed gives a bit of spit and polish to the band's Southern arena rock leanings, even though the harmonies take a curiously prog-rock turn. It's kind of like hearing early Lynyrd Skynyrd crossed with the Alan Parsons Project.

Speaking of Parsons, the eight-minute Touch Me I'm Going to Scream, Pt. 2 seems to suggest Pink Floyd at its lush core. But the pop accessibility that sweeps through all of Evil Urges makes Parsons a better reference point. This is probably as close to the early My Morning Jacket as James is likely to get. But you have to get past the initial disco-fueled verses, the guitar colors of country want, and, of course, James' dog-torture falsetto to arrive at even the most remote hints of where the band has traveled from.

The one tune here that is a little tough to accept is Highly Suspicious, a blast of 1980s-style funk with a falsetto shimmy by James that seriously desires to channel Prince. Aside from cartoonish backing vocals that sound as if they were trucked in from another state and nonsense lyrics, the tune's melody is static when compared to the album's broader stylistic sweeps.

But that's merely a speed bump on My Morning Jacket's rocket-ship ride to a more expansive pop universe. ”It's a big, big world,“ James sings in Aluminum Park. ”You gotta like what you see. And I do.“

It will take some open ears and, very likely, a few extra spins of the disc to arrive at that world. But chances are you're going to like it.