SOUND BITES

You can tell a lot about a band from the quality of the music that they release, obviously; it's another thing entirely, though, to take into consideration the quality of the music that they don't. In my mind, some bands separate themselves from the herd based on B-sides and outtakes that match and even sometimes surpass the material on their studio albums.  The case of My Morning Jacket sort of fits the narrative, but not really; they don't have a ton of unreleased content (at least, not that I'm aware of) but the sessions for their 2015 album The Waterfall were fruitful enough to leave them with a fair amount of unused songs. That's the setup for The Waterfall II , not a sequel but an addendum, an album-length experience pieced together from that unused music, released five years after the original's release. These songs don't always rival the ones that made the first album's release, but there is a lot of charm and chill contained here, and also a ha...

Spring 2015 saw some big albums released that were kind of disappointing (isn't that right, Mumford & Sons?), but it also saw some really good work by bands that typically fly under the radar. Some of this batch of nominees have been around for a long time, some are relative newcomers, and a couple of them made welcome returns from very long absences. The next group of Song of the Year nominees are:

If you're going to make me count the most adventurous bands of the last fifteen years on one hand, the first band that's going to come to mind every time is My Morning Jacket. It's easy to underestimate just how much they've grown and how far they've pushed out their boundaries since their early days of recording reverb-soaked alt-country in empty grain silos. Starting in earnest from their 2005 breakthrough Z , they've never shied away from an impulse. Whether the reggae-meets-soft rock of Off the Record , the gonzo space funk of Highly Suspicious or the staggering big band sway of Holdin' on to Black Metal , My Morning Jacket have had a recent track record of leading with some of their most experimental material. Which is why it was a little strange that the first taste we got of The Waterfall was in the form of legitimate single material Big Decisions , with its straightforward approach and home run chorus. It put forth the possibility that, after a d...

MY MORNING JACKET First Light From: Circuital Released: May 31 Making their name as Bonnaroo-ready jam rockers with 2003's epic guitar odyssey It Still Moves , My Morning Jacket took a slight left turn by adding splotches of pop and branching out into other art forms with Z two years later.  Rather than balk at the idea of an expanding sound, the fans took it all in.  So, when Jim James started singing in falsetto and throwing the kitchen sink in on 2008's Evil Urges , people started giving My Morning Jacket dirty looks.  This writer praised Evil Urges for being as freaky as it wanted to be; mass perception be damned, Evil Urges is a hell of a fun album to listen to.  Nonetheless, the band was considered by many to be at a crossroads leading up to the release of their sixth album.  Would they get back to basics?  Would they get even weirder?  Would Jim James keep using that damned falsetto? As Circuital reveals, the answer is yes to all th...