this is a weird album. while the dub and reggae influenced Z hinted at the changes to come on evil urges, nothing could really prepare me for the first three songs. “evil urges” starts things off sounding like the bastard child of radiohead’s “subterranian homesick alien” and lenny kravitz’s “it ain’t over til it’s over.” confused? good. “touch me i’m going to scream part 1″ follows, and although it isn’t much of a departure for mmj, it relies a bit more on keyboards for atmosphere than prior efforts have. “highly suspicious” is … probably going to be the most polarizing song from evil urges, given that it sounds like prince with backup vocal contributions from the monsters of sesame street. couple that with some maniacal laughing and a killer thematic solo at the end and you’ve got a pretty good idea of how the song sounds. as bad as that may seem, it works.
this new side of mmj would be great if it wasn’t completely abandoned for the rest of the record. from “i’m amazed” onward, they revisit familiar territory– albeit in interesting ways– choosing to explore their more quiet side rather than develop the funkier, soulful side they just teased you with. consequently jim james’ kermit-the-frog-like warble is noticeably toned down here, as he employs a more reserved delivery that works especially well on “librarian,” one of the best songs of the album. still, the consistency of the rest of the album is a riddle to me: three strange tracks of varying styles and influences, followed by eleven other tracks which all seem to paint from the same palette and are fairly consistent with what mmj have done prior.
it might be a cop-out for me to suggest that perhaps this album is a “grower.” much of this sentiment stems from the fact that i can’t really wrap my head around evil urges at this point. so much so that i find myself coming back for repeated listens because i’m confused; it’s very interesting to me, i’m just not sure if that interest translates into enjoyment or even longevity in my record collection. i don’t dislike it, but i think that its lack of cohesion musically weakens its ability to speak to me, especially when compared to their last record. while their innumerable influences came together on Z rather seamlessly, evil urges is a bit more obvious and as good and challenging as some of its songs might be, the record is awkward and suffers from poor sequencing (at the very least).
Filed under: Album Review , 2008, evil urges, lenny kravitz, mmj, my morning jacket, radiohead
