Review: My Morning Jacket- The Waterfall

So, it's been a while. I really have been trying to form an opinion on this album for a while now, and I've been having a little bit of difficulty. My Morning Jacket has been a favorite group of mine for a good while, and as such, I probably had some pretty high expectations. I remember being a little disappointed with Circuital when it first dropped, but with repeated listens, it eventually made sense to me. I feel like My Morning Jacket for me is a group with projects that don't immediately grab me, but grow to be very big over time, which is why I won't be rating this. I'll feel weird about giving a rating when I am still kind of wrestling with it.

My Morning Jacket's sound has always been pretty spacey, and that is no different here. Jim James' vocals are soaked in reverb, which gives them a very heavenly and calming feel. Calming is probably a word that would describe this album pretty well to me. Though it has some propulsive drum grooves ('In Its Infancy (The Waterfall)'), some synthy sections and lyrical content that is a little darker than the normal MMJ fare, there isn't really a hard guitar breakdown in the tracklist here. I do enjoy some of the mellower moments here ('Get The Point'), as they kind of throw back to the Tenessee Fire era of the band, but I feel like with that hard track there, a bit of their sound is missing. I think they're trying to distance themselves from the eclecticism of Evil Urges, which apparently did not sit well with fans and critics, but is actually my favorite album by them. All I'm saying is I wouldn't mind a 'Highly Suspicious' in there somewhere.

I do feel like the mellow sound keeps the record pretty consistent, and there's a alot of trance like grooves to get lost in here. I don't think I've ever heard the rhythm section provide tighter and more catchy grooves. These tracks will probably be a hit when stretched out for live performances (seeing them in June, so I'm hoping). I splurged for the deluxe version of the album, which had some pretty decent bonus tracks (I actually really enjoyed the track 'Hillside Song'. A little out of the MMJ wheelhouse, but it was a nice little singer songwriter number).

All in all, I feel like this added some new hits to the My Morning Jacket live repertoire, and is probably one of there most consistent and focused in recent years. I do kind of miss some of the experimentation found on some of their releases from the mid to late 2000s, but I have feeling that this project might grow on me like Circuital did. Looking forward to see what the band does with these tunes live.

Check back in soon when I take a look at The Epic, the aptly titled 3 disc jazz record by Kamasi Washington. I'll also take a look at the new Jamie xx project, In Colour.

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