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Evil Urges | 
| Artist: My Morning Jacket
Label: Roughtrade
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy New: £8.98
You Save: £5.01 (36%)
New (29) Used (7) from £6.99
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 933
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 883870046527
EAN: 0883870046527
ASIN: B0017V8QHA
Release Date: June 9, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Evil Urges | | • | Touch Me I'm Going To Scream | | • | Highly Suspicious | | • | I'm Amazed | | • | Thank You Too | | • | Sec Walkin' | | • | Two Halves | | • | Librarian | | • | Look At You | | • | Aluminum Park | | • | Remnants | | • | Smokin' From Shootin' | | • | Touch Me I'm Going To Scream | | • | Good Intentions |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 I keep going back again and again August 1, 2008
I don't understand the number of critical reviews of this album. I think there are some truly wonderful songs on here, and for me, it's the one album I've returned to again and again over the last few weeks. Tracks like I'm Amazed, Aluminum Park, Thank You Too, Remnants, Smokin' From Shootin. I could go on and on. There are only really two or three tracks on here that I would have jettisoned, and they aren't really bad, just not very memorable. I even enjoy Highly Suspicious!
I agree with another reviewer that the spontaneous shouts and yelps that suggest this was a 'live in the studio' recording sound slightly contrived. But that's a minor complaint.
Overall, I love the variety of styles, the songwriting, the fabulous musicianship... I have trouble picking out some of the lyrics but I'll get them eventually.
I have never been disappointed by an MMJ album, and I'm not disappointed by this one either. Highly recommended.
 Unintelligent experimentation July 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
How was THIS the album that turned My Morning Jacket into a band that could play Radio City Music Hall, Red Rocks, and Madison Square Garden?! Even weirder was all the press they got right before this album came out, as if it was going to be a masterpiece or something. Where was all the press when they came out with GOOD music? I usually love when a band moves onto something new in their songwriting, and "Z" was an excellent example of not making the same old album all over again and bringing the listener something fresh and exciting... but the new "ideas" on this album are shallow and lousy... don't expand yourself if you can't do it, MMJ.
Naive Over Indulgence July 13, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a huge fan of My Morning Jacket, I was eagerly anticipating Evil Urges, having listened relentlessly to It Still Moves and Z and purchased all the earlier albums too. The reverb drenched vocals, existential lyrics, beautiful melodies balanced superbly with some heavy guitar work, have drawn comparisons with Neil Young, but despite the grand nature of their sound, a playful exuberance is never too far around the corner and its that ability not to take themselves too seriously, which has made them so listenable. I can pretty much put them on at any time of day in any mood and their music fits. That fine balance of intensity and playfulness has been tipped very firmly in the playfulness direction and that harmony they've achieved in the past, is not to be found in this latest effort from them, Evil Urges. I get the feeling that with success and perhaps a lot of sex, Jim James has decided to just have some light hearted fun, making an album that could even be a homage to Prince in its attempt at sexiness. It sounds like it was made in the space of an evening (a friday night on the piss most probably), rather than the manifestation of years of profound introspective thought. The track Highly Suspicious made me want to adopt the brace position. I hope, like the morning after a night out, they will wake up smiling, but suitably ashamed and ready to start being serious again. I hope it sells though and wish them nothing but the best. I'm seeing them live next week and I just pray they play some of the old stuff!
BOLD, BAFFLING, and BRILLIANT. June 20, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Other My Morning Jacket albums have hinted at the bands eclectic approach to their music and influences, but none of their studio albums have ventured this far into new territory.Evil Urges is the sound of a band at its most playfully creative, and the results are a joyous mix of the expected and the slightly surreal.Like the Flaming Lips before them My Morning Jacket are not afraid to take chances and hope their audience keeps up.
Perhaps the most controversial track is "Highly Suspicious" which steals from Prince, with added oddness in its chorus.However this is just one surprise as Evil Urges builds to the climatic modern space rock epic "Good Intentions" that closes this uplifting, but mind boggling set of songs.It takes guts to break so completely from accepted norms, and the joy of Evil Urges is in its willingness to do just that.The main comparison i can think of is to imagine Neil Young emerging as a young talent today with 50 years of rock history to work with,i reckon he would be producing music not dissimilar to this, which is the highest praise i can give.
With the success of bands like My Morning Jacket, Death Cab For Cutie, and Modest Mouse, American left field pop has not looked this healthy since the early Nineties, and is really showing the way for creative music in this new century.
 A stumble, but nothing worse. June 9, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
So this is what Jim James calls "getting away from normal rock n' roll sounds" in order to give the listener a more vivid indication of the My Morning Jacket live experience. Perhaps that was a wise idea, then. It's sometimes quite heart-breaking to witness a band whose records you have adored, only to leave the venue feeling empty. But if only Jones had considered the fact that his band were on something of a winning streak, 'Z' being the solution to a perfect musical formula built from the equally riveting 'It Still Moves' and 'At Dawn', if only he'd just stuck to the formula.
Because to tell you short and sharp, 'Evil Urges', the fifth record from Kentucky's finest is a disappointment. It's the sound of a band having a night out where instead, they should have stayed inside. Replicating the simple songwriting qualities that appeared on masterpiece 'Z' surprisingly, wouldn't have been cheap and because they've attempted to break ground again, the majority of this 14 track LP sounds dated and far too desperate.
Of course there are moments to praise - 'Smokin' From Shootin'' builds and builds into a thrashing crescendo of glorious fuzz seeped into a fantastically tight band sound. Jim Jones loses himself for a moment towards the end and its one of the rare moments in which the record sounds genuine, passionate and stunning. 'I'm Amazed' sticks to the previously tuned formula more than anything else on the album, it brinks on being too simplistic but the blissful piano/guitar combined riff ensures that we remain gratified. It's when the band sound this triumphant and god damn powerful that their sound works.
When it doesn't work, things go a little pear-shaped. 'Highly Suspicious' is going to take an acquired taste to enjoy. Hip-hop elements are blended with the poppiest sounding Jones vocals you're ever likely to hear. It comes close to being pulled off - a structure renders similar to the work of the White Stripes and the simplicity of it all is a positive. But when Jones begins to laugh hysterically you can't help but imagine yourself in a situation akin to being taken to the Rocky Horror Show, dressed as a prostitute, as a straight-as-you-can-be avid, blokey reader of FHM. Essentially 'Highly Suspicious' makes you feel dreadfully uncomfortable. It's just fortunate that this mess is reprimanded by the following song 'I'm Amazed' and its predecessor, the synth-heavy, 80's influenced 'Touch Me I'm Going To Scream', it's second part (the final track) surpasses it in thrills and strength with an ironically traditional rock n' roll sound. But the better moments are hard to come by, and patched out in an odd tracklisting that rarely lets the album flow or get into a comfort zone.
The record never reaches this comfort zone because its too wrapped up in its own indecision. 'Librarian' is a seedy and false account of a dysfunctional sexual fantasy, lyrics verge on being embarrassing and make little sense ("When God gave us mirrors, he had no idea"), it's either trying to tell a story or attempting to send out a positive message and preferably, that's not the My Morning Jacket we're keen on hearing. The preferred sound is one gathered up in the frenzied 'Aluminum Park', equipped with firey guitar solos and a raging Jones playing his role as the front-man expertly. The "live sound" is attempted with cheers of "woo!" every now and then but they again, are unlikely to be spontaneous.
The fault of this record is that even though this is the My Morning Jacket we all know and love, their idea of experimentation isn't just changing their sound, instead they opt for an alteration in the personality that comes out from their music. But the better, more suitable sounding moments make 'Evil Urges' no more than a stumble.
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