evil urges

My Morning Jacket faced mortality and dedicated their love with the adventurous exploration of this musical memento mori.  Jim James wrote the songs for 'Evil Urges' while recuperating from pericarditis that resulted from touring with undiagnosed walking pneumonia:    "It was hugely painful, horrifically scary.  I'd just run myself ragged from touring. I almost died, and I was forced to rest up for several months...For me, 'Evil Urges' was like a video game:  If you play 'Super Mario Brothers', there's a level where it's like a snowscape, and then there's a level where it's a desert, and a level that's like a jungle. I wanted to make all these different levels for the album, so you were like: 'Oh fuck, what's going on here?' You walk in the next room and it's kind of mellow, and then you walk into the next room and you're like, what the fuck's going on?"

James co-produced 'Evil Urges' with Joe Chiccarelli at 
 Avatar Studio in New York.  The sessions featured James on vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percussion, and Omnichord; Tom "Two Tone Tommy" Blakenship on bass; Patrick Hallahan on drums and percussion; Carl Broemel on guitars, vocals, pedal steel, and lap steel; Bo Koster on keyboards, programming, vocals, piano, synthesizers, organ, Rhodes, and percussion.  

'Evil Urges' was a breakthrough hit for the band, coaxing its way to number seventy in the Netherlands, fifty-five in Sweden, thirty-four in Belgium, nine on the US billboard 200, and number two on the US independent and alternative album charts.  James attempts to explain the title:    "It's kind of all tied into religion confusing people's morality and people always wanting to think that something is either bad or good, whereas in reality I feel that most stuff is more confusing than that. So basically, it's about being confused and feeling that most people are searching for some kind of answer that sometimes people think religion can bring. And lots of times, people will do things that they think are good in the name of religion, but oftentimes they're destructive for the world, although people think they're really being good -- or maybe they are being good, 'cause I'm kind of confused about the whole thing...Every time we make a new album there are certain elements that we started exploring on the record before it that we keep exploring on the record afterwards. It's also definitely a reaction because we try to make every record sound different than the last one, even the equipment we use and the studio we go to and stuff like that. On this record, I wanted to be less organic and tighter, more locked-down, and maybe more propulsive in the rhythm section and tighter in the vocal. Just kind of all-the-way-around tighter. That's definitely a reaction to some of our other records. I just think it's more fun to pick up a new record by a band and hear a completely different record, where you're trying to figure it out and wonder what's going on...We record all the basic tracks including the basic main body of the song live. So everything is always based around us playing it live. But also we like to explore the studio and we like to get into really nitpicking stuff and really building walls of sound and stuff like that. The album will physically last longer than we will unless humans destroy the planet before then. So we try to look at albums as things that will last forever that we put as much time and thought into as possible. The live thing is kind of cool because it's freeing in a way, since it's just going to be that one night. The songs are definitely built to be able to work live, but they're also kind of two different worlds."









http://www.mymorningjacket.com/












"Highly Suspicious" 
 James says:   "It confused some people.  'Highly Suspicious' wasn't ironic, I wasn't making fun of it, but I thought it was fun and hilarious. I guess people have a hard time dealing with humour in music. But sometimes life is depressing, and sometimes life is fun, is about just laughing with your friends, and I wanted to express that, as well as the darker stuff."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1MMStUrNGs



"I'm Amazed" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzdoOGUsEKg



"Thank You Too!" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-sm1T4qJAw



"Sec Walkin" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eahXNZLVwzM






"Librarian" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Es1flO_2M









"Remnants"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rM_LmvTc0U




"Smokin from Shootin" – 5:07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v2ErS5Dz8Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPy7mRwyykU




"Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt.2" – 8:14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpdwwa7lsUI




'Evil Urges' 
full album:




All songs written and composed by Jim James, except where noted. 

1. "Evil Urges"   My Morning Jacket 5:14
2. "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 1"   3:51
3. "Highly Suspicious"   3:07
4. "I'm Amazed"   4:35
5. "Thank You Too!"   4:29
6. "Sec Walkin"   3:37
7. "Two Halves"   2:36
8. "Librarian"   4:18
9. "Look at You"   3:30
10. "Aluminum Park"   3:58
11. "Remnants"   3:04
12. "Smokin from Shootin"   5:07
13. "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2"   8:14
14. "Good Intentions"   0:06