Rating: - what have they done?
Love it love it love it. Saw them live @ rainy Bonnaroo 08' and went right out and purchased this record ... for me it's probably my favorite album in the last dozen years, and evokes comparison to Radiohead's epic OK Computer. (for me) Here's my buddy's email response after he went out and got it on my recommendation: "I liked it! The songs are a refreshing blend of everything from country to southern rock to 70's singer/songwriter to heavy pop and just about everything in between. The older analog effects work nicely with their overall sound. Everything from octavers to analog slapback reverbs and delays. Highly Suspicious sounded like something that would come of Prince singing and playing guitar while Devo and Oingo Boingo backed him up! Trippy. The drums left me wanting a bit, but the recording on them is lush and sweet. Kinda like how Lenny records his drums. The songwriter (if it's one guy) is definitely a product of the singer/songwriter genre of the 70s. I'd love to hear Springsteen do Aluminum Park! Was surprised by the diversity of the styles contained within. You wouldn't think you'd hear a track like Evil Urges and Sec Walkin on the same CD."

I smell a Grammy nomination. Love it love it love it.

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Rating: - I Love This Record
I believe "Evil Urges" is the best MMJ record yet and highly recommend it. I purchased "Z" last year based on one song and really enjoyed the entire album. I also have "It Still Moves" and "The Tennessee Fire". It seems to me that every MMJ record has been an improvement on the previous record, and that is quite an accomplishment.

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Rating: - You're missing the point
I think this is a brilliant album and all the negative reviews are coming from early die-hard fans who don't want the band's sound to change. The truth is things do change and in this case from good to excellent. I have to say this is one of my favorite albums of 2008 and key words here are fun and risk-taking. Don't let the negative reviews turn you away from this, but also don't expect that early MMJ sound... these boys have grown up...

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Rating: - MMJ refuse to stay in the box
It's clear after listening to MMJ's latest studio album, Evil Urges, that Jim James has no intentions of letting his band be painted into a corner. The band could have very easily have accepted their place as a southern jam band with a killer live show and made a very comfortable and profitable living. But Jim James and company are all about pushing their music forward and exploring new territory. That was clear on 2005's "Z" which still defies easy categorization. Things aren't quite as spacey and weird on Evil Urges, but the band has made it clear that they aren't going to revert to jam band territory.

While this album isn't as genre defying as "Z", it still boasts excellent songwriting and top notch musicianship, which we've come to expect by now. The biggest change on this album is that James' vocals are clearer than on past records. He no longer sounds like he's singing from the bottom of a well. Musically, the biggest surprise is a detour into funk on the song, "Highly Suspicious" where James tries out his best Prince falsetto. The very idea of that combined with the repeated lyric, "Peanut butter pudding surprise" should make the song a disaster. But it truly rocks. So does every other track. "I'm Amazed" is one of the best songs of the year and several others are in the running ("Librarian", "Evil Urges", "Two Halves").

This album may not be as innovative and groundbreaking as Z, but it is a better album over all. The songwriting is more consistently excellent and the band are clearly working at the peak of their powers. It's hard to imagine another rock album topping this one in 2008. Evil Urges is one of the very best albums of 2008. Let's hope that Jim James continues to push his group beyond their jam band roots. The future is theirs.

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Rating: - My Morning Jacket crafts their strongest album to date
I've had this album for a couple weeks now, and I can't stop listening to it. I'm finding that it has a lot more staying power for me than most albums seem to, due in large part to the narrative strain that runs through it as much as the genre-blending music itself. Obviously everyone who listens to an album like this will have a somewhat different response to it, but here are some my initial impressions of it:

The first song plays like a mission statement for the album, offering the fairly typical secularist ethical perspective that what some call "evil urges" are really perfectly natural and simply "a part of the human way", that "ain't evil if (they) ain't hurting anybody". The narrator (who seems to be an older version of the narrator of the next few songs, as if he's looking back on his childhood) is strident about his decision to "love whoever I want, just whenever I can" and offers some pluralist hippie jargon about "no racial boundary lines, no social subdivisions". Not their most imaginative song, but not terrible either- 3 out of 5 stars.

The second song is somewhat reminiscent of Z's "It Beats 4 You"- it conjures up an air of intense intimacy, so much so that the narrator (presumably a young child) says, "I can tell by the way you're smiling- I'm smiling too! I can see myself in you." This line definitely relates to mother-mirroring, and the song as a whole is largely about a young child's intense need for his mother to be near him at all times- 4.5 stars

Song 3 appears at first to be somewhat inscrutable lyrically- it's hard to tell what Jim James is saying through his weird falsetto whine, and even if you read the lyrics from the booklet you have to wonder what the hell he's talking about in lines like "peanut butter pudding surprise!". The title and jagged guitar suggest a sense of growing paranoia, and the mention of "daddy" who's "got you home alone, solving your crimes" is significant when compared with the mother figure of the previous song. It would not be unreasonable to presume that this song is representative of the young boy's first encounter with the prohibiting superego and that it's the father who is highly suspicious of the son, but to me the song is more about a child growing to mistrust and resent his parents for keeping him "wastin' time home alone, dotting (his) i's" 2.5 stars

`I'm Amazed" is obviously the big lead single, and as the most traditional song on the album there's a natural tendency to mistrust it. But I actually think that it succeeds quite well at what it sets out to do- cast the growing child in a light of amazement at the immensity, strangeness and violence of the world around him, and feeling `disrupted' by it. He wonders "where is the justice?", lamenting the "love we rejecting" and "what we accept in its place". It's hardly the best song on the album, but still better than most bands could pull off on their best day with a sweet riff and an unusual construction in which the verse actually takes the form of a chorus hook. 4.5 stars

The gorgeous 5th song is made even more gorgeous what sounds like either chimes or reverbed electric piano adding an airiness to the song's already spacious construction. It plays like the sound of acceptance and gratitude of a child for a parent after the child has seen what the world has to offer and can finally look at all the things the parent does with an adult sense of appreciation, 5 stars

The 6th song strolls along with a pace consistent with its lyrics about walking one leg at a time and breathing in your own air. This is like the child finally going out into the world and looking for "eyes that hypnotize" (something seductive) and feeling the glare of the "demon eyes watching" (something menacing). 3.5 stars

Song 7, appropriately titled `2 halves', continues on the growing up theme of the 5th and 6th songs; it's about recognizing, as you get older, the fact that what you really want is the best of everything for yourself, and that in reality you're not always going to get everything out of life that you want. In the first verse, the narrator mocks his own naivete, reminding himself that it wasn't all that long ago that he was 17- acting, thinking and behaving as a 17 year old. The `two halves' title refers to the dual nature of fate, that for every winner there must be a loser, and for every success there must also be a failure. 4 stars

In the 8th song, the narrator finds his `eyes that hypnotize' in the form of a sexy librarian who he watches "through the bookcase- imagining a scene: you and I at dinner, spending time, then to sleep". It's a boy's fantasy, but an exceptionally innocent and clean one- rather than wanting to see her naked, he urges her to "take off those glasses and let your hair down for me". This is one of MMJ's best exercises in pure songwriting- there's no chorus to this song, with the verse left to provide the hook. It is reminiscent of some early Dylan songs, minus the cascade of metaphors maybe but great storytelling nonetheless. 5 stars

The 9th song finds the narrator idealizing his new squeeze as so many young people are prone to do, referring to her as a "glowing example of peace and glory" and half-begging her to "let me follow you". Musically, it's actually one of the least memorable songs on the album, but that's not really saying much on an album as full of memorable songs as this one. 3 stars

The 10th and 11th songs rock harder than any other song on the album, and work to great effect as a pallete cleanser in that way. In the 10th song, the barnstomping jolliness of the music fits with the relatively sparing lyrics about sapping the maximum amount of joy possible out of life, with the `aluminum park' probably referring to like a Disneyworld or Six Flags or some other man-made edifice of fun to that effect. 4 stars


The excellent 11th song is where the album starts to get more obtuse lyrically, as it begins a meditation on the nature of God and existence that basically carries through the last three songs. It seems to refer to the `remnants' of the crumbling empire of organized religion and suggest that "all souls, all faiths- always- we are one". This is what U2 would sound like if they were actually interesting. 4.5 stars

Song # 12 (Smokin' from Shootin') continues on the spiritual quest theme to some extent- the lyrics of the verses are kind of interesting in places but don't really offer any specific perspective on anything- the closest he comes to that is during the chorus when he suddenly goes all skeptical on you, questioning someone (sexy librarian?) as to whether their life was spent " running from something that isn't there?" 4 stars

The last song is probably my favorite on the album sonically, and lyrically it kind of brings the album full circle- the narrator ultimately seems to realize that he doesn't know any more about the Designer he hopes to meet than does the young child of the first "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Part 1"- all he professes to know is that "this feeling (of being alive?) it is wonderful! Don't you ever turn it off!" I really could not imagine a better way to end this particular album myself. 5 stars