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Z |  | Artist: My Morning Jacket
Label: Bmg
Category: Music
List Price: £11.99
Buy New: £3.99
as of 23/11/2009 15:08 GMT details
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New (9) Used (2) from £3.99
Seller: bva1518
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 6807
Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.7 x 0.4
UPC: 828767169422
EAN: 0828767169422
ASIN: B000BFHVJM
Release Date: October 17, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Wordless Chorus | | • | It Beats 4 U | | • | Gideon | | • | What A Wonderful Man | | • | Off The Record | | • | Into The Woods | | • | Anytime | | • | Lay Low | | • | Knot Comes Loose | | • | Dondante |
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
Sounds as sweet as a night of surrender October 30, 2005
Jase (Cambridge)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
After the departure of a few band members, and the addition of a few new members, My Morning Jacket have returned with a new producer John Leckie (Radiohead#8217;s The Bends). The result is Z, a work of such beauty and depth that it simply has to be considered as a contender for album of the year.br With a much more expansive sound, My Morning Jacket haven#8217;t shunned their alt-country roots, merely expanded them in every direction. In every department this album shines. Jim Jame#8217;s voice has always been one of the band#8217;s strengths (think Neil Young meets Thom Yorke meets Jeff Buckley), and it#8217;s a joy to hear his whooping falsetto over the outro of opening track Wordless Chorus. The addition of a keyboard player to the band#8217;s ranks really becomes apparent on this track and elsewhere on the album.br What#8217;s impressive is the range of sounds and genres here, all delivered to near-perfection. Gideon has shimmering guitars and lush melodies reminiscent of Radiohead at their best. Off The Record combines Beach Boys harmonies with ska and post-punk, before drifting off into a strangely ambient last few minutes. And then there#8217;s Into The Woods, arguably the album#8217;s highlight. Here, the band take the template of a folk song, and dress it up with a spooky carnival organ (always a good thing) and an oom-pah-pah rhythm. It opens to the best lyric on the album, #8220;A kitten on fire/a baby in a blender/both sound as sweet as a night of surrender#8221;. Sheer poetry.br As proven with their earlier works, these guys are fine musicians, and there#8217;s plenty of riffy material here too. The epic Lay Low is the kind of classic rock even Pearl Jam seem incapable of these days. What A Wonderful Man is infectious in its optimism, like a more guitar-heavy Flaming Lips. Knot Comes Loose provides a few moments of calm reflection.br And then there#8217;s the final track. Dondante is the album#8217;s showpiece, a delicate but unsettling ballad at first, with James#8217; falsetto once again evoking comparisons with Jeff Buckley. Then the song bursts into life with a crashing chorus, then proceeding with a Pink Floyd-like explosion of guitars, before drawing the album to a gentle close.br It showcases another of the album#8217;s strengths: its great depth. There are plenty of songs here with a sense of immediacy about them: What A Wonderful Man, Anytime, and then there are songs like Dondante, Gideon and It Beats 4 U whose intricacies just get better with every listen. For all of the comparisons with other artists made above, this is a genuinely original and innovative album which you#8217;ll listen to for years to come.br Forget the supposed sensitive types of Coldplay and Keane. Along with the Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket make them look very silly indeed.pKey Moments: Gideon, What A Wonderful Man, Into The Woods, Dondante
The Amazing Gifts of Z October 13, 2005
Juan Mobili (Valley Cottage, NY USA)
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
Sometimes, an album comes out and it's nothing less than event in your life. The music takes you for a ride. The time now has a soundtrack.brFor you the albums that may come to mind will not be the ones I'm thinking of. Two recent ones for me that rival Z, and in some way share or reach a similar mood, are "OK Computer" and Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots."brThis album is that good. Whether it's the flight and power of "Wordless Chorus" or the depth and emotive punch of "Gideon" or the amazing "Dondante," My Morning Jacket can do it all.brJohn Leckie's production has brought out even more palpably the promise of If It Moves, and the addition of the new members have made the band more versatile and far-reaching. brBoth are critical factors, yet the major reason for this great work is Jim James -My Morning Jacket's Wayne Coyne in every sense of the word- who writes some of the most beautiful and challenging songs I've heard in a while and in few other bands, and as a singer has come into his own.brThis is one of the great albums of this year. It can easily make my top ten.
I Put On My Morning Jacket And Headed Off To 'Z' August 19, 2006
Phill (London)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
I came across this album by sheer accident never heard of them before, while I was shopping for a different CD I see the album cover of this and I thought it was so cute I asked the cashier if I could listen to it and the first track just grabbed me so I bought it on a whim and fell in love with it.
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br /1.Wordless Chorus - A few things spring to mind with this one The Flaming Lips and Reggae yes, reggae it has that slight vibe to it and makes the song sound really cute and innocent. It's one of my favourites and a definately stand out 10/10
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br /2.It Beats 4 U - Is slightly more edgier and up-beat i like the drumming it sounds like marching and the lead singers voice is great on this track he sounds similar to Chris Martin (Coldplay)
br /another great song. 9/10
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br /3.Gideon - Wasn't taken in by it as much as the others when i listened to this though i had the 60's in mind it has a slightly psychedelic,trippy beat i really liked the lyrics of this and the lead singers 'wailing' is very much in-tune and powerful very nice voice. 8/10
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br /4.What A Wonderful Man - Another sweet, chirpy beat but the thing is about this song is that the lead singer wrote it about a friend who commited suicide although the dark subject it's a really nice song if u don't know what the songs about.It could easily be on a movie soundtrack for some teen/indie movie its catchy i surprised this wasn't a single release it's also very short 2:25 10/10
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br /5.Off The Record - Was the lead and only single from the album a great lead if you ask me put me in mind of a Madness song with a little hint of Kaiser Chiefs.Nice song,good lead 8/10
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br /6.Into The Woods - It's starts off with creep fairground music birds cheeping and children whining a very trippy song that is quite eerie to be honest not one i enjoyed a great deal but very original i gotta say nice vocals too 8/10
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br /7.Anytime - Another song with a strong rock edge to it, it flows very well throughout probably the only song that feels weak to me i don't really have much to say about it you either like it or you dont',but i'll let the album run through if i'm in the mood 6/10
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br /8.Lay Low - I really liked this song an old school vibe going on and it just fits in with the rest of the album the lyrics are great as well 8/10
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br /9.Knot Comes Loose - Now i was reading the lyrics to this one and the conclusion i came up with is either it's written about gettin over depression of about supressing your emotions from someone you care deeply about this is probably my favourite song it's a very emotive song with beautiful vocals (yes,they are).I like the line "All my lovely life/I been waitin'/hot heels antisipatin'" great song 10/10
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br /10.DonDante - I'm not sure if this is the name of the person it's about but i read that Jim James wrote this about the death of someone very close and special to him maybe he saw it as a way of release therapy but i think this a fantastic closer. It's the longest song on the album clocking up 8 minutes but it's just one of those songs you wished went on for longer.I had Radiohead's OK Computer album in mind when i listened to this so fragile and vulnerable.Also this song has the most incredible guitar solo talking about making a guitar cry! so beautiful 10/10
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br /Top 5
br /1.Knot Comes Loose
br /2.Dondante
br /3.What A Wonderful Man
br /4.Wordless Chorus
br /5.It Beats 4 U
MMJ get even better November 4, 2005
Mike Mantin (Bristol, UK)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Reverb-loving Kentucky My Morning Jacket were doing fine in their country-rock niche, but they#8217;ve gone and progressed anyway. #8216;Z#8217; is their finest album yet, replacing the annoying five-minute guitar solos with some adventurous new developments: some Flaming Lips-style keyboards on #8216;Wordless Chorus#8217;, some Clash-style reggae guitars on #8216;Off The Record#8217;. Jim James#8217; voice is as spectacular as ever, and even that#8217;s developed (witness the stupidly high a cappella outro to #8216;What A Wonderful Man#8217;). While it#8217;s a little too short (10 tracks in 40 minutes), each track sees the band surprising further both musically and lyrically. #8216;#8230;Wonderful Man#8217;, for instance, may be an upbeat, Motown-style stomper, but its lyrics mourn a recently-dead friend. pWith #8216;Z#8217;, My Morning Jacket have finally delivered the album of uplifting, eclectic alt-rock classics they always meant to. Guitarist and keyboardist Johnny Quaid and Danny Cash, who both left the band in 2004, must be kicking themselves.
Kentucky fried pysch-country May 7, 2008
Demob Happy (London / Grenoble)
Over four albums My Morning Jacket have fashioned a sound that embraces widescreen emotionalism with rootsy Americana, pyschedelia and alt-country. `Z` sees My Morning Jacket broaden their influences while retaining the unifying use of reverb that makes all the songs sound unmistakably them now matter how far they stray from the alt-country template. Recorded in a grain silo or not, veteran producer John Leckie should probably be recognized for maintaining the sultry Kentucky mood while Jim James and co. toy with white boy soul (Wordless Chorus), Clash-style punk-reggae (Off the Record) or stadium power pop (Gideon). MMJ's Phil Spector-esque use of reverb affords a cerain abstraction - even distance - to even their most tangential enterprises, and allows them to sound like them, even when they don't. Listening to `Gideon' for instance, has the effect of standing at the back of a very large, empty hall, watching Simple Minds belt out a dress rehearsal. The cavernous effects applied to the recording turn something veering dangerously towards arena rock into something equally epic but nonetheless subtly psychedelic.
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br /Opener Wordless Chorus might well have been an outcut from Junior Boy's `Last Exit`, all pared-down digital soul, but there is a giveaway deep-South flavour geographically and sonically alien to Jeremy Greenspan's clinical synth pop. MMJ are not the first band to marry country and soul - their contemporaries Lambchop did it, with a rather different effect, on their 2000 album Nixon - but Z's opening gambit suggests they have mastered the art. `It Beats 4 U', the second track and no doubt the album's anthem, places a beautiful ballad upon militaristic percussion and the type of icy, fantastical synth effects popularised by Goldfrapp - Sunday Bloody Sunday meets Felt Mountain. The song works equally well as an acoustic ballad - versions of which are floating around the net and are well worth checking out.
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br /Other highlights include `Into the Woods', which bears a closer resemblance to the psych-folk of their contemporaries Grandaddy and Midlake, with carnivalesque organs and surreal lyrics contributing to a less emotionally-earnest listening experience. Meanwhile the single `Off the Record', like tracks from Spoon's later Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, shifts from reggae-tinged punk to more expansive, dubby psychedelia. Never a band to hurry their songs into three minutes - somewhat refreshing at a time of skinny-jeaned post-punk revival - MMJ somehow avoid sounding pompous and stodgy. There is a looseness to the compositions that stop even the more elaborate and lengthy passages labouring under the weight of pretension. There is even something of Thom Yorke about James' singing on the final track, albiet over a musical backdrop lighter and more spacious than Radiohead's (bar their most recent album In Rainbows). My first My Morning Jacket album, `Z` is fantastic discovery for me - if you like this you might like any of the aforementioned artists and albums, alongside Neil Young, Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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