Of all the bands on the ATO Records roster—including those impressive Brit-wits, Radiohead—no group exemplifies the label’s commitment to making careers rather than records than My Morning Jacket. Since the release of It Still Moves in 2003, the Jacket has released roughly one album or EP each year on ATO Records, save a dry spell in 2007, and seem to be on an upward trajectory from odd new kids to the most popular dudes in school.
In fact, try this: Picture ATO Records as a high school hallway. The three fellows in The Whigs talk loud and act like punks while straightforward, rule-abiding Patty Griffin threatens them with detention. Liz Phair and Soul Coughing’s Mike Doughty spend the first half of the school day in Phair’s car smoking, pop machine Ben Kweller wonders why David Gray is so popular, and everyone kinda wonders where Jem went.
 |
My Morning Jacket start at ATO as precocious, naive rock freshmen—think of the character William Miller in Almost Famous. Everyone loves a good guy, and these fellows easily win over classmates and teachers with It Still Moves. “Shucks,” they seem to say. “Weren’t nuthin’!” Next, MMJ releases the adventurous record Z, an album that rattles the lunch trays out of Radiohead’s hands, then throws a killer party before senior year and records it—that’d be 2006’s searing live album, Okonokos. Principal Capshaw announces that MMJ is the king of the Bonnaroo Prom, and tells them to ready a valedictory speech for graduation. That speech is Evil Urges.
 ATO’s cherished rockers, My Morning Jacket, dress up their sound for the ambitious new record, Evil Urges. |
The problem is that everything MMJ does from this point on is done in front of the whole school. Evil Urges has all of the grown-up rockstar sound of records by The Who—this is the group’s stab at making Who’s Next—but the band sounds like a group of guys borrowing their fathers’ coats on graduation day, like they’re getting into something a bit too big. Evil Urges’ 14 songs about hope and fear could’ve been tucked and taken in; the opening title track is monstrously catchy, pairing a double kickdrum and dueling lead guitars with vocalist Jim James’ skyscraper vocals, but goes on for a minute too long, as do most tracks here.
That being said, a good deal of the extra space is taken up by the sort of bottle rocket guitar work that makes MMJ a phenomenal live act. For every song that seems a bit too ambitious—James singing about “peanut butter pudding surprise” over Depeche Mode back-up vocals in “Highly Suspicious” or the redundant sophomore fantasy of “Librarian”—there are five more that will make Flaming Lips’ gig at the Charlottesville Pavilion look like a set by Raffi. And, at eight minutes, “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream pt. 2” is the album’s longest track but also the most necessary, the surest sign that MMJ’s considerable risks on this record may yield a bigger modern rock classic after graduation.