MY MORNING JACKET – CIRCUITAL
It is not that My Morning Jacket did a bad job of their last album, indeed there were many quite taken with their Prince-like approach to Evil Urges. It is just that the Neil Young fans of their earlier work became a little confused while those more in the Radiohead vein, well they just didn’t care! Circuital sees MMJ well and truly back to their roots. Recorded in a church gym in Louisville (must have been one fit congregation), the album has a slight re-born zeal about it: “I am older day to day / Going back to my childhood ways.” That is not to say Jim James has lost his dorky playfulness: “They told me not to smoke drugs, but I wouldn’t listen/ Never thought I’d get caught and wind up in prison.” James and MMJ are never better served than on the quieter, simpler moments; Wonderful (The Way I Feel) and Movin’ Away are album highlights as James’ voice and wonderful hazy melodies are allowed room to breath, underpinned by a band that have gotten their jazz-funk-folk-fusion album out of their system and are all the better for it.
****
