This week brings a new My Morning Jacket album, an Eddie Vedder ukulele outing, the umpteenth Dave Matthews Band live collection, and Ozzy's past barks at the moon. We are just now hitting the busy summer release period, so these blogs in the next few weeks will be getting jam-packed.
In the next month we can expect albums from upcoming Summer Fest headliners Fucked Up and the Black Dahlia Murder, a Wild Moccasins re-release on New West Records, a new Arctic Monkeys set, and the highly lusted after Bon Iver sophomore album. Get out your hankies.
My Morning Jacket, Circuital: Pronounced "Secure It All," My Morning Jacket's latest is dividing fans, some who have been turned off by it's lead-off single, "Holdin On To Black Metal," leading some to believe the band was continuing with the wacked-vocals and Prince-repping of 2008's Evil Urges and away from the It Still Moves-style holy mountain jams that brought them to the table in the first place.
But Circuital is nothing like "Black Metal" would lead you to believe. Cuts like "Wonderful," "Outta My System," and the title track will wrap old fans up like a warm blanket on a cold Kentucky evening. Closer "Movin' Away" is a Jim James stunner in the vein of The Tennessee Fire's "I Will Be There When You Die."
Eddie Vedder, Ukulele Songs: A stark solo outing from the Pearl Jam front man, Ukulele Songs is a 16-track record of Vedder alone with a ukelele and songs about expanse and isolation. If you were a fan of his Into The Wild soundtrack, this is a worthy, stripped-down sequel.
The album ends with two covers, the Cat Power-assisted "Tonight You Belong to Me" and "Dream a Little Dream," the former you may know from Steve Martin's The Jerk. PJ fans shouldn't be worried about the 46-year old running off with that tiny guitar, he is currently tracking a new album with the band for this year's 20th anniversary, with a Cameron Crowe documentary to follow this fall.
