The story with the shambling, lo-fi Americana of their early records — the work of a young studio tinkerer and prodigious songwriter from Louisville, Ky. But even then, it wasn't simple — James incorporated precise harmonies, off-kilter rhythms, and a slightly demented songwriting style that yielded a truly distinctive sound, and hinted at his outsize sonic ambitions. A few years later, James and a crack band fine-tuned an approach that balanced arena-ready guitar bombast, huge hooks, James' righteous vocal chords, and that same touch of weirdness.
Just a touch shorter than At Dawn , the album feels twice as immense. It's majestic almost throughout, crammed with one epic song after another. Not to depart too far from the premise of this article, but it must be said: at least half of the songs on It Still Moves remain absolute warhorses in their live shows, speaking to the hallowed place this record occupies amongst MMJ's fanbase.
This is totally based on experience and isn't empirically demonstrable in any real way, but I feel It Still Moves may be the collective favorite of the MMJ fan community.
Rightfully so — this is likely the most essentially My Morning Jacket-esque album that My Morning Jacket has produced. As lengthy as this album and most of its songs are, everything feels integral, whether it's the way "Mahgeetah" or "One Big Holiday" perpetually seem to have peaked, only to break into another brilliant guitar-hero moment, or the way the longer songs seem to demand their length. Speaking of those epic ones, there's a lot of that here.
What's incredible about these particular songs is the way MMJ achieves such a psychedelic sound with them with just guitars, unadorned by effects, and the power of James' voice. In their own way, they create a world as distinct and strange as any of the more directly trippy stuff on Z.
Everything on It Still moves feels like the band is going all in, stitching every idea together to ensure absolute payoff at every turn. Perhaps as a result, this was the end of a certain version of MMJ. As it stands, It Still Moves is the zenith of that first phase, the point to which everything was building and when it did, it was incredible. Z For MMJ fans who had been along for the ride since the late '90s, I can only imagine the wobbling bass synth reverberations that begin "Wordless Chorus" and open Z must've sounded as severe as the grunge squalor of the Edge's "Zoo Station" riff did after U2 spent the late '80s mining — perhaps not coincidentally — the same Americana MMJ had leaned on for the first half of their existence.
Blankenship was still on board, just providing dubbier bass lines; James's childhood friend Patrick Hallahan took over drums before It Still Moves and stuck around; Quaid had been replaced by multi-instrumentalist Carl Broemel; and they'd added keyboardist Bo Koster.
James, as always, remained at the helm, and now led his band into ever stranger and unexpected places. This is MMJ Part 2. With a new lineup came other changes. After Quaid's departure, the band no longer recorded on his parents' farm. James stopped producing the records, and the band tapped John Leckie, who made perfect sense. MMJ were chasing sound now. Perhaps realizing that It Still Moves was about as far as they could push that particular template, the band began favoring shorter, tighter songs.
Songs like "It Beats 4 U" and "Anytime" were economical and infectious, while still achieving trippy atmospheres of keyboard and guitar textures. For many, Z was the entry point into MMJ's career. Dabbling more directly in indie rock brought them closer to the mainstream, and made them more accessible for listeners put off by any sort of twang. It set the stage for the commercial success of Evil Urges and Circuital , despite being lesser albums.
Evelyn Is Not Real 9. War Begun Picture of You The Dark By My Car Butch Cassidy I Think I'm Going to Hell Alabama Come Clean. State of the Art A. Know Til Now 3. Dear One 4. A New Life 5. Exploding 6. Of the Mother Again 7. Actress 8. All Is Forgiven 9. God's Love to Deliver. Regularly Scheduled Programming 2.
Love Love Love 3. In Color 4. Least Expected 5. Never In The Real World 6. The Devil's In The Details 7. Lucky To Be Alive 8. Complex 9. Out Of Range, Pt. Penny For Your Thoughts I Never Could Get Enough. All Birds Say 2. Life Leftover 3. In the Garden 4. Carried Away 5. Enough 6. Heaven Knows 7. Questions 8. Different People 9. Sunday Drivers On the Case Sleepy Lagoon 2.
Rockingchair Dancer 4. Snowflake 5. Landing Gear 6. In the Dark 7. Crawlspace 8. Best Of. By the Bar Lights 2. Cold Shoulder 3. Ferris Wheel Song 4. What Are We Doing 5. Mariposa 6. Now It's Dark 7. So Shy 8. The Phone 9. I Just Fell. Hide in Plain Sight 2. Same Old Lie 3. Here in Spirit 4. The World's Smiling Now 5.
True Nature 8. In the Moment 9. Eternally Even.
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