My Morning Jacket's seventh studio album 'The Waterfall', their first in four years, finds Jim James' five-piece band in a psychedelic and pastoral mood. It demonstrates many of the experimental tendencies of James' 2013 solo effort 'Regions Of Light And Sound Of God', but I must admit that I've warmed less to these songs than other critics. Culled from a productive set of sessions in Northern California, this is the first of two My Morning Jacket albums planned for the next twelve months. The tracks are infused with the hazy sunshine that you'd expect from that location, but many of them became background noise to me far too quickly. The material feels comfortable, familiar even, but it felt a bit like wallpaper. Intricate, very detailed and occasionally beautiful wallpaper, but wallpaper all the same.
That description does sound more detrimental than it should, but it is appropriate. Imagine landscapes that sprawl as far as you can see, littered with tiny details that you're more interested in than the overall picture. The term wallpaper may suggest repetition, there's little of that here, however the picture that's painted by James only temporarily catches your attention, that's where the analogy is strongest. To be fair, the moments where the ideas and sounds become less complex and more focussed are among My Morning Jacket's strongest work to date. There aren't enough of those moments for my money to make this one of their best albums though.
The emotional pinnacle of 'The Waterfall' is also perhaps its most striking moment; 'Get The Point' is a simple guitar lament to the breakdown of a relationship. It echoes the understated beauty of Paul McCartney's 'White Album' performance of 'Blackbird', comparisons have also been drawn elsewhere to Nilsson's 'Everybody's Talkin''. The song really is the jewel in the crown of 'The Waterfall', not least because it strips away some of the psychedelic haze to reveal James sharing an honesty that many of us find hard to put into words ("I hope you get the point, I think our love is done"). This is the most affecting break-up song I've heard in a long time, that much of the rest of the album doesn't reach this high water mark remains a problem for me. That's because I know that My Morning Jacket have the tools to prompt such a strong reaction as with this particular track.
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