My Morning Jacket: Circuital

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Referenced in the most accessible track on Circuital, “Outta My System,” My Morning Jacket’s last studio album Evil Urges was only a partially successful experiment in style at best and the band knew it. Accordingly, the unspoken premise for the new album was a return to what, even through the diverse likes of 2005’s Z, was a readily identifiable style of kinetic rock and roll.
But if Circuital is not exactly the sequel to 2003’s It Still Moves—it’s much more dense–the grandeur the band’s capable of conjuring up appears almost immediately here. The title song is the second track, underpinned with muscular acoustic rhythm guitar that effectively contrasts with “Victory Dance:” the opening that dramatically unfolds with moody vocal intonations over a shadowy orchestrated backdrop offered by keyboardist Bo Koster.

It’s no coincidence Circuital was recorded home in Louisville (photos of which informal sessions appear on the flip side of the handwritten lyric sheet) or that appearing near album’s end is a cut titled “New Light.” Or that the conclusion, “Movin’ Away,” contains a mantra about ‘ a new life to create…” At the other end of the album, the ever so slight hint of Philadelphia soul in “The Day Is Coming” is the judicious infusion of influence into Jim James’ soaring voice.  And that cut sounds right at home next to the intimate acoustic picking and throaty intonations of “Wonderful (The Way I Feel);” the spare echoes of strings reflect a less-is-more approach that applies to an album that, clocking in at just over 45 minutes, makes its point(s), and moves on.

A chorale of voices and orchestrated horns work for “Holding On to Black Metal” because those production touches derive directly from a heavy backbeat from drummer Patrick Hallahan locked in by bassist Two-Tone Tommy, while Carl Broemel’s buzzsaw guitar cuts through the layered sound and soars to the top of the mix.  The heady momentum of My Morning Jacket’s work on Circuital almost compels a climax with such an uproarious rocker, but that would’ve been too literal-minded, a blemish on an otherwise successful effort at artistic retrenchment. The quietly haunting conclusion, "Slow Slow Tune,” is much more appropriate.
One of the most anticipated albums of 2011 thus far, My Morning Jacket’s Circuital is one of those ever-so-rare instances where inspiration meets expectation.

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