My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges (2008)

My Morning Jacket was one of those indie bands I started hearing a lot about around the release of this album. Their name was everywhere, but I had trouble recognising their songs. It might've been because of Monsters of Folk super band project, but I somehow thought of My Morning Jacket as more of an alternative folk band than an indie rock band and whenever I heard their music somewhere, I didn't realise it was them. Then I decided to buy one of their albums from a record store end sale in Helsinki and I ended up owning this CD. It sort of changed the way I looked at the band, because this album features quite a few proper indie rock songs. The band had really wanted a more urban sound on this album than on their previous ones and they recorded it in New York. I can really hear the more urban tone in this album.



The album has quite a lot of electronic influences and the more straightforward rock has been replaced with neo-psychedelic sounds. Some of these sounds are quite forward-looking, considering that quite a few other bands adopted similar sound landscapes more than five years later. Still, I think my favourite tracks from the album are the more straightforward songs with simple and catchy melodies.

The album starts with the title-track Evil Urges. This song has quite hypnotic guitar riffs that zoom in and out until the song starts properly with a quite groovy beat. Jim James' vocals are really high in this one and I'm reminded of Of Montreal in places. Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 1 is a more spacey song with synthesisers and bouncing bass lines. The songwriting is not that interesting in this song and I feel like the song has been hidden behind all that sound play. Highly Suspicious starts off from really high vocals on a drum beat. This is a very strange song indeed. There's not much melody to speak of. I'm Amazed is one of the best songs on this album. This quite airy indie rock tune gives space for long power chords and even the vocals sound somehow more authentic. This is a very American sounding song though. Thank You Too! has a wavy bass line and beautiful string arrangements battling playfully with light guitar and organ melodies. This song also has some of the best vocals on the album. Sec Walkin is a proper Americana song with slide guitars and vocals that sound like alternative country. I like the simplicity and beauty of this song. Two Halves brings back echoey and strange electric guitars, but in terms of songwriting this is still very much simple and catchy, which I really like. Librarian is my favourite song from the album. This beautiful ballad made me return to this album after I had forgotten about it for a long time. I also like the seductive lyrics of the song. Look at You continues with a more country-oriented sound. The chiming guitars on the lazy and slow song sound quite cool. Aluminium Park is a proper rock song with pounding drums and overdriven guitars. I really like it when the power pop hits in with pianos and sharp electric guitar solos. Remnants keeps the overdriven guitars at the forefront and the beginning of the song almost sounds like 80s hard rock. These kinds of songs must be really great live. Smokin' from Shootin' is a slow and creeping song that sounds very pleasant, but doesn't really do anything for me. It sounds like it's about to start but never does. The album ends with Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2 which is basically the part 1 but played with a steady disco beat and some strange club rock sounds.

My Morning Jacket doesn't seem to have that many music videos. I did find the music video for I'm Amazed though. The video is a fairly simple video that shows the band playing live. The style of the video is quite blurry. There are some sequencing showing the band in the recording studio or just walking about outside. In that way, it's a fairly conventional tour video.

My Morning Jacket has never really wowed me. I mean, I do like their music, but they have never been one of the bands that I really intentionally want to put on and listen to. I don't know why that is. Perhaps seeing them live would give more perspective to this band, because now it's a bit distant to me. Anyway, this is probably one of their best albums.

Listen to the album on Youtube.