Hard to believe it's been a decade since I first heard My Morning Jacket's The Waterfall. I don't remember how I found it in the first place ... but I did, because I have it. I thought it was good, but I honestly don't remember much more than the first cut, "Believe (Nobody Knows)," which was hypnotic. Such a great song. I'm going to have to listen to that one again ... but first I have a few things to jot down about the band's 2020 follow-up, The Waterfall II. I managed to snag a crisp new vinyl copy for under ten bucks. One of the many Marco Polo* bargains I've secured over the last year. I'll admit, initially I was a wee bit perplexed by the title, but I also suspected there was a reason.
My Morning Jacket is one of those bands I really don't know a lot about. They've been around a while. Their debut came out in 1999 and every couple of years a new album would get released. When The Waterfall came out in 2015, it would be another five years before the outtakes were assembled into an album. With The Waterfall II, the band was eight albums deep into their discography.
The band's sound is often described as psychedelic rock, a term I don't think is appropriate or accurate. There are a bunch of others, alt rock, Americana, alternative country or even art rock ... that one cracks me up. Goodness, we do love our labels and the ability to pigeonhole things. I suppose if I was to slap a sticker on the band it would just be rock. Admittedly, there are times when all of those other categories fit certain songs.
The credits inside the gatefold are sparse. My Morning Jacket is Jim James, Tom Blankenship, Patrick Hallahan, Carl Broemel and Bo Koster. One gets the sense that Jim James is chief cook and bottle washer, as he wrote the songs and also co-produced the record with Tucker Martine. Although you never know. It's always dangerous to assume you can tell anything by just reading the credits.
The album was released in 2020, ah, the dark times. A lot of people suddenly found themselves with a lot of time on their hands and limited ways to use it. Apparently, when the band had recorded the songs that eventually made it onto The Waterfall back in 2013, they'd recorded enough material for a second album. I suspect the band didn't want to dump a double album and water it down (I almost said, "Waterfall it down") and have their audience suffer from inevitable ear fatigue and miss out on what the band was trying to accomplish.
So the rest of the songs sat in a can ... or more likely a hard drive. Of course, at this point I'm making armchair assumptions and regurgitating half baked factoids I've picked up reading about the album ... I figure I'm going to be spewing about 80% horseshit.
The album is a conundrum. I've been spinning this one here and there for several months and at first it was an odd experience. No, that's not quite right. The first cursory listen revealed a rather boring album that starts off slow and then more or less just stays that way. The only break from the monotony was when I got up to flip it over. Then I got up and turned it over again, and again ... what was boring had morphed into a collection of songs that were unwavering.
It's almost as if the band had calculated all the ways to sequence the album and eventually stumbled upon an order that was a deceptively slow burn, one that kept adding layer after layer. The music felt spontaneous and free but deliberate. This was a jam band with an end game.
Like I said earlier, I've been playing this off and on for several months now. I've tried to capture my feelings on this one a couple of times and it's felt like trying to describe a dream. I've thought about going through the songs one at a time, but that didn't feel right. The whole, to me, is more than the parts here. There are some incredible parts, but they're supported by the rest of the album.
So I figured I'd just do what I normally do. Sit and write while I play the album and just see what comes out and later see if it makes sense.
Speaking of the incredible parts, this is where I deliberately contradict myself and pull out a few tracks for special consideration.
- After spending the first couple of songs creating a mood, "Climbing the Ladder" is an odd song. This is probably where the alternative country label came from. The song is essentially centred on a repeating loop that builds to a crescendo and then starts again. The song also features a section that slows down instead of relying on a key change and then speeds up again. The song borders on irritating and awesome. I lean towards awesome.
- "Feel You" is next and is a dreamy highlight that finds the pocket early and then just settles into a wonderful groove for over six minutes.
- The big difference between the album and streaming is the break between the closing track on side one and the slow fade in and tension that announces side two. "Magic Bullet," to me, is the most intricate song on the album and if I was to single out a track as my favourite, this is the one. There's a palpable swagger to the song, and the instrumentation is on point. I absolutely adore how the band employed the saxophones to play the counterpoints during the verses. It almost feels like a nod to Oingo Boingo. I didn't see a credit in the liner notes for what sounds like a baritone sax.
- "Wasted" is a meandering track that spends at least half of its allotted time stretching out the instrumental section. The song also employs the same kind of slow-it-down shtick they did on "Climbing the Ladder," except here they use it to add tension as the song resolves.
- One of my favourite albums many years ago was The Final Cut by Pink Floyd. Yes, objectively I know this is not one of their better albums, but dagnabbit I still love it. "Two Suns In The Sunset" closes out the album and here My Morning Jacket offers up a song that sounds like its kissing cousin, "Welcome Home," which seems to share much of the same DNA. I love this song, and I often think of this as the final track on The Waterfall II ... except it isn't.
I've spent months (yes, I said that more than once, but I did spend a lot of time with this one) off and on immersing myself in this album, and it has been a wonderful journey. It's also a little strange that it feels like a complete experience. I don't feel the immediate need to suss out their back catalogue and hear more, but I know I will ... in time.
Right now I'm just going to let this one settle. What a great album.
* I've written a few times about my wife's propensity to abandon me at the mall and I eventually give up trying and go to the record store and check out their clearance section. Check the link, it'll explain it all in more detail than you'd ever want.
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