My Morning Jacket: Evil Urges

With Evil Urges, My Morning Jacket plunges deeper into R&B without losing footing in their well-established proggy Americana mode. It's a somewhat surpising move, but in retrospect it was prophesied by the adventurous genre-bending of Z. When the band gets carried away, like with the over-the-top falsetto of "Highly Suspicious", a solid Southern rocker kicks in just in time to prevent the album from jumping the shark. The schizophrenic tone of the album belies a subtle grace that takes repeated listens to perceive. Evil Urges doesn't approach the triumph of Z, but it still demonstrates a great deal of what makes My Morning Jacket special.