Z - My Morning Jacket . The quintet, which forms My Morning Jacket, hail from Louisville Ky. The lead singer and band's leader/founder has the unlikely name Jim James. I have to assume that since Jim is the shortened version for James, making his formal name James James, that his mother was drunk when she named him. J.J. founded the band in the late nineties with his cousin, guitarist John John. Gotcha! Just kidding. Cuzz's name was John Quaid. Cuzz along with keyboardist Danny Cash, found the touring too much of a grind and left the band after the release of their third album. In addition to J.J. their current lineup consists of: Two-tone Tommy on Bass, Patrick Hallahan on Drums. Late joiners Bo Koster (keyboards) and Carl Broemel (guitar) replaced Quaid and Cash.    Z    My first impression of `Z' was that it was quite a bit different than my typical choice for aural enjoyment. My second impression was that it was not something for which I would lay down fifteen bucks. My last and continuing impression was that there was, indeed some worthwhile enjoyable music emanating from my CD player.    Trying to categorize the band's music is challenging. I word have to say the overall the band play's an indie sounding pop-rock with forays into progressive, folk and alternative, even psychedelia. Their music tends to be happy and poppy with a lot of variation between songs. The album starts off with a song named "Wordless," which actually reminds me of the song "Angel" from the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack but with a mild cha cha style beat. It's probably because of J.J.'s strong singing on the song but for me the similarities are strong. "It Beats 4 U" White Stripes beginning doesn't impress me, but picks up in the middle with J.J.'s reverberated vocals, a cello, some whistling, finishing somewhat psychedelic. Track three, "Gideon," has some interesting moments with J.J. sounding like he's singing through a tunnel yet his vocal remain strong. The song has some noticeably good keyboards and the tempo builds ending in a crescendo.    "What a Wonderful Man," is a short mulligan stew style song featuring tavern kind of vocals and a tinny guitar." Track five is "Off the Record." I didn't particularly like the beginning but about a third of the way through it becomes a fabulous bluesy, psychedelic instrumental. "In the Woods" starts out with a circus Hammond which recurs throughout augmenting an um pah pah circus beat. The seventh song is "Anytime," probably the rockingest if not the catchiest song on the album.    The next song at just over six minutes is the penultimate longest song. Other than some really good piano parts, that seems to be the most memorable part of "Lay Low." The ninth track, "Knot come loose," is a forgettable ballad but the last song "Dondante is an eight minute masterpiece, by far the best and most refreshing song on the album." Beginning inauspiciously with J.J. singing to a slow casual beat and subtle guitar, the song heats up after a slow start, immediately after a nice guitar solo into an explosion of sound, featuring J.J.'s soaring vocals and a whining guitar, ala post rock style, before gradually fading out to obscurity.    Conclusion    I don't think I'd plunk down fifteen bucks for "Z" because even though it's a pretty good album, I would seldom if ever be in the mood for this confluence of eclectically influenced music, especially since I tend to gravitate to the heavier variety of music. However, I cannot help but feel that it would appeal to a large segment of the music buying public. Are you one of them?    Final rating 4 stars.
Output: POS