Evil albums

I’ve been avoiding this post because it actually breaks my heart a little bit. I’d prefer to write a post complaining about the lack of a My Morning Jacket album in 2008, rather than having to write about the album that they’ve released.

Kentucky country-rockers MMJ won me over with It Still Moves in ’03 and Z in ’05 and made me look into their backcatalog with the barnstorming live set Okonokos. But honestly, the new album Evil Urges makes me wonder if this is the same band. I mean, they were never a straight-up rock ‘n’ roll band and they’ve mined some weird territory before, especially on Z, but it was alway good.

Now in the first three tracks we’re given barely warmed-up Prince parodies (“Highly Suspicious” – I’d rather not talk about it all) and only tolerable MMJ-by-numbers (“Evil Urges”). It all just seems lazy and contemptuous.

Still, it’s rare that a competent band produces an album that’s ALL bad, so we get the minor blessing of a pretty song like “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Pt. 1”. Albums like this are what iTunes was invented for.

My Morning Jacket – “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Pt. 1”