Bloody typical. Last full Lunar Eclipse around these parts until 2042, and it’s cloudy. Still, all things considered, in 2042 we’ll possibly all be living on the moon watching the Earth eclipse the Sun. So, swings and roundabouts then. In any case, it’s due to start in about 20 mins here so there may well be a gap in my typing while I brave the elements, trying vainly to pick out a darkening celestial body through about half a mile of cloud cover.
Anyway, onto the matter at hand. This album is rather apt for tonight, singing as it does about connecting the Earth to the Moon, even if the referenced celestial bodies don’t include about 6 months’ worth of cumulo-nimbus all stacked up to spoil the view. It also seems to deal with that most un-Rock ‘n’ Roll of subjects; that of growing older (not old, instead just on a bit). Thankfully, Circuital comes across as a testament to the spiritual avoidance of the onset of time by way of revelling in a collective past as much as possible.
Kentucky’s My Morning Jacket have appeared on my radar lately, through the not-inconsiderable input that frontman Yim “Jim James” Yames brought to Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore’s Dear Companion. And while Ben and Daniel’s solo work is only a step or two away from that collaborative effort, Yim’s new opus on first listen sounds a whole universe away from the Appalachian homeliness of last year’s record. Opener Victory Dance has the assured cosmic grandeur of Pink Floyd in Pompeii with its huge chorus and patient buildup, and this general “bigness” is a polished factor throughout, although never without purpose and never overblown in its execution.
But closer listening unearths snippets of a homegrown folk sensibility, tucked away in a vocal phrase here or musical idea there, especially during the epic title track – replace the picked guitar and bass during the verses at the start (and its 1970s rock main body) with something more acoustic and we’re back amongst the mountains instead of some distance above them. Wonderful (the Way I Feel) is more overtly folkish, and is so as a natural part of the rest of a record that touches many bases on its journey.
As mentioned above, there’s plenty of mention of growing older if not necessarily growing up. The post-rock Beach Boys-channelling Outta My System is perhaps the most obvious example of this, with its list of minor misdemeanors qualified with a backwards glance from a wiser and happily non-regretful viewpoint, glad that those things were done as well as being glad that the desire to do them is long gone (“Oh Lord I’d never do it now, I know what I ain’t missin’”). This gentle approach to one’s lengthening years is a much more palatable listen than a more traditional “oh bugger, must buy a sportscar” panic commonly known as The MenoPorsche, coming across as from someone happy with both where he is as well as the stories collected so far.
A slight midlife crisis appears about halfway through Circuital in the form of the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Holdin’ On To Black Metal, a song about clinging to the music that moved one so vitally as a youth (a subject close to my heart as this blog hopefully shows!), although instead of getting all Celtic Frost about it all, the song moves into curious ’80s pop-prog territory, a genre occupied pretty much solely by Yes’ Owner Of A Lonely Heart, visited here almost completely and lovingly intact (including a horn section that invokes Trevor Horn’s proto-Art of Noise sampling, albeit with more John Barry, James Bond sauciness here).
The overall spirit of Circuital, in the middle of all this gathering from here and there, seems to revolve somewhere around a mid-period 10CC – in no small part through Yames’ vocal style (managing effortlessly to sound like all of their vocalists), but also from a viewpoint that the songwriting is such a strength to My Morning Jacket that they can visit reference points and throw curious little curveballs into the mix and it all sounds so organically created that everything fits. This is growing older with a grace and affection that I can only hope for, and long may they continue to do so.
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