My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves

First published in the Wentworth Courier, March ‘04

I’m not one to get hung up on production. Not too fussed on the details of how many mics you used on the drum kit. Don’t really care that you recorded the album in a cottage in the south west of France to capture that certain je ne sai quoi.

But in the case of My Morning Jacket’s “It Still Moves”, the production style is so prominent it’s nigh on impossible to ignore. This album sounds like it was recorded in the room next to the room down the hall from the room where the band was playing. Bluntly put; it’s tinny, smothered in echo, and that’s probably exactly what the boys wanted.

A five-piece from Louisville Kentucky, My Morning Jacket place themselves deep in the heart of wild and free America, hitching a ride through the Rockies with Neil Young, sucking down bourbon popping off buffalo with a six gauge. To say it’s country would deny it of much deserved credibility, but to neglect it’s roots in such pastures would make Johnny Cash wonder if it had all been for nothing in the end.

All in all it’s a competent and consistent work, which clearly is either your thing, or it isn’t. If you’re not a fan within the first ten seconds, you might want to keep moving.