While
My Morning Jacket
is a band of five members, even a casual look at their body of work makes it clear vocalist and songwriter
Jim James
is the one who calls most of the shots. In the studio, this has manifested itself in
James
either producing or co-producing all of their albums, keeping his musical vision firmly in his control. Given this, 2025's
is
marks a change in
MMJ
's working methods, as they recruited
Brendan O'Brien
to be the sole producer of the sessions, putting someone else in charge for a change. It seems to have been a wise choice;
certainly sounds like
, honoring their eclectic spirit and love of rootsy grooves, but it also feels tighter and better focused than much of their work, and rocks with an easy balance of heady joy and studio precision.
have never been afraid to show off their influences in 1960s and '70s rock, and with
O'Brien
at the controls, they've made an album that has the sheen of classic productions of the era without suggesting they're mimicking sounds of the past. With
in charge,
is an LP that takes advantage of the possibilities of the recording studio, creating music that sounds great without choking the life out of the performances, capturing just enough sweat and muscle to make the songs soar while he puts them on tape with a welcome clarity and balance. The band claim that they wrote a hundred songs while preparing for
, and if
helped them pick the ten that made it to the final mix, that certainly earned him a good share of his paycheck. The tracks cover plenty of stylistic ground, but they play off each other very well. The upbeat atmospherics of "Out in the Open," the classic rock swagger of "Half a Lifetime," the country-rock earworm of "Everyday Magic," the playful romantic shuffle of "I Can Hear Your Love," and the sweetly mournful slow jam of "Time Waited" are as well-curated an album side as you're likely to hear from a record released in 2025. (The rest of the album is no slouch, either.)
hasn't sung with this much unforced confidence in a long time, and his bandmates (guitarist
Carl Broemel
, keyboardist
Bo Koster
, bassist
Tom Blankenship
, and drummer
Patrick Hallahan
) give these songs first-rate support, delivering some of the best ensemble playing of their career. There isn't much on
that
couldn't have done on their own, but having a neutral observer on board certainly appears to have helped them up their game as a recording act, and it's one of the most purely satisfying albums they've delivered since they changed their game with
Z
. ~ Mark Deming