My Morning Jacket
Z (ATO/RCA)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Amplifier, September-October 2005

It’s hard to think of two bands that might seem to have less in common on paper than an Icelandic band that sings in their own imaginary language and a Kentucky group that spent time opening up for Guided By Voices, but there are points on Z that really do call out for a comparison between My Morning Jacket and Sigur Rós. Singer Jim James is particularly fond of singing in a wordless falsetto drenched in reverb (the title of opening track “Wordless Chorus” is nothing if not descriptive), and the closing “Dondante” has a low-key groove that eventually erupts into atmospheric loudness. That fascination with sonics pays neat dividends from time to time – the sequencer-like guitar line in the Coldplayesque “Gideon,” the Perry Farrell-singing-Todd-Rundgren “What A Wonderful Man” – but overall Z could use some songs strong enough to support My Morning Jacket’s flights of fancy.

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