My Morning Jacket have always been something of a mythic outfit. Back in 1999, when the band released its debut LP, The Tennessee Fire (and again in 2001, after the release of At Dawn), its legend was whispered quietly, like a ghost story: Kentucky, grain silos, reverb, that high, liquid voice. As 2001 was the apex of a certain kind of dark, New York City cool-- with the Strokes and Interpol slouching around the Lower East Side in threadbare t-shirts and tiny ties-- My Morning Jacket were steeped in a warm, eerie other-ness that culminated, cathartically, with Jim James howling "All your life/ Is obscene." Well, sure.
In the ensuing decade, the band became legendary for its heroic live show (in 2008, they stormed through a near-four-hour set at Bonnaroo), but its studio work has always been a little less triumphant. On record, My Morning Jacket can sometimes sound like a band struggling against its own best interests, purposefully eschewing the exact thing-- huge, ghostly, terrifying rock'n'roll-- it does so disarmingly well. Accordingly, the reigning press narrative surrounding Circuital, MMJ's sixth LP, has been focused on the band's supposed "return to form," a response that feels like a direct reaction to its title (or, more likely, to 2008's falsetto-addled Evil Urges, easily the band's most divisive record).
But what are they returning to, exactly? My Morning Jacket’s early discography is rooted in oddball experimentation: Despite the open-mouthed riffing, impenetrable reverb, and whipping hair, they’ve never really been a straightforward rock band, especially on record. Jim James' penchant for psychedelic soul is constantly manifesting in new ways, and while Circuital is closer, certainly, to 2005's Z than Evil Urges, it doesn’t feel like a step backwards, or even like a lateral hop.
The record opens with James tooting a half-serious introductory "horn" riff that belies a goofy sense of humor. James has always been something of a jokester (cue the whispered "Shaaa!" at the end of "Circuital" or the line, "They told me not to smoke drugs, but I wouldn't listen/ Never thought I'd get caught and wind up in prison," from "Outta My System"), but his voice is so naturally dramatic that even silly bits can sound like earnest proclamations. That's why-- and this is unique to MMJ-- he often sounds best when he's delivering vague platitudes.
Still, anyone who's ever heard James wail in concert is likely to be frustrated by the eternal underuse of his voice in the studio, even when the songs were ostensibly recorded live. There are a few tracks here where producer Tucker Martine captures it in all its intoxicating splendor-- the acoustic lament "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)" especially-- but most only hint at what James is capable of delivering in person. His falsetto (contentious since the days of "Highly Suspicious") comes back for "Holdin on to Black Metal", a bizarre bit of jam-funk that alternates between pleasantly spirited and genuinely stupid (it's a cautionary tale about not growing out of black metal fandom, and ends with a shout of "Let's rock!"). On "Slow Slow Tune", James sounds remarkably vulnerable, singing to his future progeny over a barely there, bubblegum guitar figure that recalls the Everly Brothers before transitioning into a Flaming Lips-style burnout.
Like nearly all of their studio albums, Circuital may not reach the heights of the band's live show-- a good MMJ concert can recalibrate your gut, it can change you-- but it’s a remarkably solid step for a band that's never stopped evolving.
