My Morning Jacket
“It Still Moves”
(ATO Records)
The Louisville, Kentucky band return with a decent follow-up to the near perfect album “At Dawn”. A bit more straightforward and lacking the psychedelic weirdness of their first two albums, “It Still Moves” continues their tradition of plaintive acoustic ballads (“Golden”) and fervent guitar rock (“Masterplan”). It’s their first album for a major label (Dave Matthew’s label no less), but don’t let this frighten you. MMJ are the shit and a right proper representation of classic rock done today.
It helps that they weave dreamy pop melodies (insert Flaming Lips comparison here) among the dueling, marathon, Skynyrdesque guitar solos. Jim James’s heavily reverbed vocals (insert Neil Young comparison here, I dare you to find a review or story on MMJ that doesn’t make said comparison) remain as beautiful as ever. The main difference from past albums is an injection of Memphis soul from the legendary Willie Mitchell (who worked with Al Green, among countless others) who provides horn arrangements on a few songs, notably the upbeat “Dancefloors”. Points awarded to MMJ for enlisting a piece of history for this album.
