Friday, August 29, 2008

MY MORNING JACKET"Evil Urges"ATO

THERE ARE CERTAIN rock bands, such as Queen, Boston and Oasis, for whom artificiality is both their greatest strength and greatest limitation. The transparent calculation of the arrangements, the obvious use of studio trickery to create cartoonish superhero grandeur and the utter disposability of the lyrics all undermine credibility. But when the melody, rhythm and riffs line up just right, as on "We Will Rock You," "More Than a Feeling" and "Wonderwall," the ear-candy effect is irresistible.

On its new album, "Evil Urges," My Morning Jacket throws off its roots-rock and jam-band disguises and reveals itself as a seductive contrivance in the tradition of Queen, Boston and Oasis. The band's lead singer, Jim James, and his co-producer, Joe Chiccarelli, have polished every guitar, drum and synth sound till they gleam and have placed each one in its pre-arranged place in a dazzling mosaic. James possesses an otherworldly high tenor, and when it bites into a chorus melody as good as the ones on "I'm Amazed," "Thank You Too" and "Aluminum Park," it doesn't matter what nonsense he's singing because the music itself is so transporting.

In fact, this album would have been much more effective if James had simply sung sweet-sounding cliches as Queen, Boston and Oasis would have, instead of gumming up the works with pseudo-literary gestures. In the midst of this sugary, carefully planned pop music, all his references to "evil urges," "demon eyes" and "the mirror's evil ways" are incongruous distractions that get in the way of Carl Broemel's arena-rock guitar heroics and Bo Koster's synthscapes.

-- Geoffrey Himes

Appearing Wednesday at DAR Constitution Hall (202-397-7328,http://www.dar.org/conthall). Show starts at 8 p.m.