There's more than one way to become famous in the music business. For some bands, their careers take off like a rocket because of a hit song or remarkable album. The groups are transformed from struggling artists to running buddies with P. Diddy.
For other bands, achieving headliner status is more about built-up momentum. As opposed to a cataclysmic commercial event, it's the result of a slowly accumulating audience attracted to an undiscovered musical treasure.
The second scenario clearly applies My Morning Jacket, a Louisville, Ken., quintet that has long been tagged as a rising star in the jam-band scene. Like the Grateful Dead before them -- who never had a hit song until near 20 years of trekking across the country -- My Morning Jacket are taking the long and windy route to headling the Bonnaroo festival's main stage.
The band's previous major works, "It Still Moves" and "At Dawn," were pleasing enough records that established that the band had a unique sound. The group's most pronounced musical characteristics are singer/guitarist Jim James's heavy-on-the-ol' reverb vocals (his lyrics are as indistinct as any sung by early Michael Stipe) and their songs' generous instrumental passages (this even though the group boasts no star-quality instrumentalists).
Besides the jam-friendly attitude, their use of Marshall-stack-powered guitars and the slight Southern lilt in James' voice have earned the group comparisons to '70s rock titans like Neil Young or Lynard Skynard or the Allman Brothers. (Hey, the band even has a cameo appearance in the new flick "Elizabethtown," which was written and directed by that champion of all things classic rock, Cameron Crowe.)
But the biggest problem that kept their records from being real attention-getters was the kind of blase feel of the songs. Each song sounded so similar to the one before it, and the structures were so hippie-ishly lax that their purpose was always diluted. While on some level the songs were enjoyable, the same-ness and jamming too often gave listeners' minds a chance to wander off.
My Morning Jacket's newest effort, "Z," takes a step torward rectifing the problem. It builds on the groundwork of their earlier albums but refines the group's sound. The band has distilled their music down to the core elements and worked to make each song a standalone piece. More specifically, they've emphasized those country and world music influences that were previously washed out in all that echo.
The disc isn't a dramatic improvement on their formula, but shows progress. It should reinforce the group's standing with the Bonnaroo crowd. And gazing into the future, we can see a day when My Morning Jacket will be headliners of jam band festivals. This is the record that will get them there.
Besides a couple of new band members, the most discernible new ingredient to band's circle is the presence of album producer John Leckie. One can easily detect the influence of Leckie's most famous clients -- Radiohead -- early on in this record. "It Beats 4 U" has the identical jittery rhythm found on "Paranoid Android" and James' voice is treated with as much holy-spirit reverence as Thom Yorke's. Both "It Beats 4 U" and disc's opening track, "Wordless Chorus," are filled with Radiohead-like, LSD-inspired auditory pulsations that reassure listeners that they are in fact on a trip of sorts.
The Radiohead feel fades by track 3 when the band fully reverts to their old formula. "Lay Low" features James' yearning intonations that eventually surrender to the sizzle of the guitars. The tune slowly devolves into a solo-less guitar workouts. The group's guitarists work off each other, but never cut loose. They search for something melodically but neither of them make it to Santana solo heaven.
Besides the tried and true, this record does have some curveballs too. "Off The Record" features ska guitar fills that sound beefed up on steroids. This is augmented by an electric piano that mimics the sounds of steel drums. For "Knot Comes Loose," the band creates a pretty ballad using piano, acoustic and steel guitars, and bongos?
"Z" ultimately is another step on the ladder for My Morning Jacket. Like any great jam, the band seems to be growing and building in strength and working up toward a climax. This process could take another year or it could take another 20, but the band will likely be gathering ever more to watch this all unfold.
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