My Morning Jacket - "Highly Suspicious" (2008)

My Morning Jacket is a fantastic rock band that has been releasing albums for nearly ten years. The group from Louisville, KY has been hailed by many critics and fans as one of the best live bands performing today. This can be seen and heard on the band’s 2006 live CD and DVD Okonokos. I first discovered My Morning Jacket in 2003 after hearing a few tracks from their third album It Still Moves, most notably the single “One Big Holiday.” I liked a couple of the songs but wasn’t really blown away. In 2005 the band released Z a collection of ten songs that immediately won them new fans and put them in the upper echelon of the indie rock scene. Needless to say that their fifth studio offering Evil Urges has been widely anticipated for a couple years now and it’s finally here. I’ve been listening to this record non stop for the past week and I find something new to like about it every time. The band builds off of what they did on Z but doesn’t necessarily stay in the same range sonically. There is a balanced mix of hard rockers and breezy ballads on Evil Urges. One of the better slow songs is “Librarian,” which finds front man Jim James crooning softly as he imagines wooing the librarian he’s been admiring from afar. The lead single “I’m Amazed” is classic MMJ and could fit comfortably on either of their two previous records, featuring some solid Southern rock guitar licks. “Highly Suspicious” is a song that is likely to polarize some of the band’s long time fans. James is almost mimicking Prince as he sings the verses in a high falsetto over some heavy bass and several voices join him to bellow out the title of the song, which is the hook. This is a great one for rolling down the windows and jamming on the air guitar, much to the chagrin of the driver sitting beside you at a red light. It’s not really representative of the album as a whole, but it’s easily my favorite, but will probably leave some fans scratching their heads. Evil Urges is definitely on my short list of best albums of 2008 so far. This is a must buy for sure.


My Morning Jacket - "Highly Suspicious"