eMusic

Start Your Trial

Evil Urges

by

My Morning Jacket

 
Evil Urges
view larger image View Larger

Rate it!

Avg: 3.5 (787 ratings)

MMJ sing the body ecstatic.

  • We Say...

    Review by Andy Beta

    The two tracks that bookend My Morning Jacket’s fifth album attest to that centuries-old Christian body/soul divide that sits at the root of good church folk like Jim James and his cohorts. On the one hand, there’s “Evil Urges,” the other, “Good Intentions,” and MMJ know as well as anybody that hell is paved with both of them — meaning the middle path is best. If anything, My Morning Jacket strike a precarious balance on Evil Urges, being still familiar to longtime fans while also reaching for extremes in their sound.

    The opening title track swoops in like something beamed down from Radiohead’s OK Computer, anthemic guitars amid spacy keyboard washes, as the conflicted James realizes that “It ain’t evil, baby, if it ain’t hurting anybody.” Much like another Kentuckian, Will Oldham, James couples his choirboy exterior with the animal desires that lurk beneath, mining the fertile fold where the two meet. Or, simply put, James finally digs that the closest one can get to heaven is through some fine fucking. He fantasizes about a “Librarian” hiding “the beauty the Good Lord put there” and aims to help her to find that heaven within. And, with an orgasmic yowl, he looses heaps of sexual frustration on the sublime disco(!) workout “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2.”

    Such lower-half excursions aren’t always divine though; “Highly Suspicious” will make-or-break Urges for a lot of fans. It’s an odd amalgam of canned '80s keytar, complete with a non-sequitur about “peanut butter pudding surprise” and bolstered by James’s highest falsetto and most robo-baritone. If anything, it sounds like the band’s attempt to do Brazilian funk carioca, complete with “Wild Thing” guitar lick. Thankfully, they just as easily swoop back into the familiar soft-rock beatitude of “Thank You Too!” and the demur keen of “Sec Walkin.’” Here, James gauges his every step carefully, exulting in earthly delights around him. Yet all is not well, as he also notes the “demon eyes are watching everywhere.” And so the dark and light forces continue their push and pull.

  • They Say...

    Review by Andrew Leahey, All Music Guide

    For those who weren't convinced by Z's left-hand turns, Evil Urges cements My Morning Jacket's transformation from grizzled, reverb-drenched classic rockers to experimental, genre-bending innovators. There's always been a slight disconnect between the band's image and sound; frontman Jim James once howled his melodies behind curtains of long hair while lashing at his Flying V guitar, looking like a Metallica roadie while sounding like Neil Young in an echo chamber. But 2008's Evil Urges -- with its diversions into funk and prog, its falsetto vocals, its eclecticism -- is a different animal entirely, perhaps the furthest My Morning Jacket have ever sounded from the Southern psychedelia that launched them ten years prior. The bandmates look different, too, having trimmed their bushy beards and unruly hair for the photos that grace the album sleeve. Physical appearances may have little to do with this group's sound, but the clean-shaven look further challenges the world's perception of My Morning Jacket, a band that was once lumped into the same down 'n' dirty rock bin as the Drive-By Truckers and Kings of Leon. The members of My Morning Jacket now want to occupy their own orbit, and Evil Urges is as spacy as it gets. "Evil Urges," "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream, Pt. 1," and "Highly Suspicious" comprise the opening lineup, which jumpstarts the album with 13 minutes of sexy, tripped-out electro-funk. James slips into a falsetto during the title track, his voice clear and reverb-free as he coos in a bedroom whisper. "Touch Me" bubbles with interstellar keyboard effects and harmonies -- for the stoner contingent of MMJ's audience, this is the logical place to fire up the bong -- while "Highly Suspicious" delivers the album's biggest shocker, mixing James' best Prince impression with bizarre lyrics ("Tapping your lines, peanut butter pudding surprise!") and bursts of laugher. It's the kind of polarizing song that fans will either love or loathe, and given its prominent spot in the track list -- batting third, a spot usually reserved for heavy-hitters -- it's obviously meant to elicit a strong reaction. But that seems to be the crux of Evil Urges; after years of being shoehorned into various genres, My Morning Jacket have put their collective foot down, insisting that they're not a neo-psychedelic outfit, an alt-country group, a jam band, or the contemporary torchbearers of Southern rock & roll. They're none of those things -- or perhaps they're all of those things, as Evil Urges offers the widest swath of musical fare in the My Morning Jacket catalog. There's rock & roll ("Aluminum Park," "I'm Amazed"), country ("Sec Walkin'"), rootsy pop nuggets ("Two Halves"), ballads about sexy bookworms ("Librarian"), and the aforementioned trips into Funkytown. "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream, Pt. 2" concludes the album with eight minutes of kaleidoscopic sound, and Evil Urges ultimately ends the same way it began -- with a willingness to explore, to challenge, to poke and prod at My Morning Jacket's past work while creating something new.

  • You Say...

    Write a Review

    I would like to say...

    Artist: My Morning Jacket

    Album: Evil Urges

    Review Title: (maximum 50 characters)

    Your Review: (maximum 1,000 characters)

    Cancel

    Please keep your comments to the recordings themselves, and be courteous and respectful. Thanks! For further info, read our Community Guidelines.

“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”


Rolling Stone
Start Your Trial

Recently Viewed

Back
Forward

© 1998-2009 eMusic.com Inc. eMusic and the eMusic logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks in the USA or other countries. All rights reserved.

All Music Guide © 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC

Facebook®, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia® are registered trademarks of their respective owners, Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Neither Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. nor Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. are partners or sponsors of eMusic. eMusic uses the Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia API but is not endorsed or certified by Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia. eMusic does not pre-screen, monitor, endorse nor assume any liability for websites, contents, products, services or claims made by Facebook, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia®.

Legal or copyright question regarding Facebook, YouTube, Flickr or Wikipedia content on eMusic? Please email us.