Jim James - Eternally Even

Pitchfork 79

The idea of a Jim James solo career was slightly perplexing at first. My Morning Jacket is a band in a true, old-school sense—now with a fixed lineup, any character in which would be hard to replace—but Jim James is the sole songwriter, and it has always been his vision driving them. What, exactly, was he leaving out? Yet as 2013’s Regions of Light and Sound of God suggested and his new record Eternally Even confirms, there are other ways to wield his hardly-of-this-earth voice, other ways to meld genres within his idiosyncratic hybrid of American music—music that wouldn't quite fit in the MMJ framework, but which needs to exist nonetheless.

Eternally Even, logically enough, is more of a companion to James’ last solo LP than it is to My Morning Jacket’s stunning 2015 release The Waterfall, particularly in its deeper indulgence of James’ soul influences. But it takes those soul elements and submerges them in psychedelic textures, making for a head trip of an album. Regions was a strong record in its own right but felt less like a statement than a collection of songs—which, with material dating over the course of a few years, it sort of was. But Eternally Even sounds as if it was sequenced as one piece that requires front-to-back listening.

James goes all-in on a frayed, psychedelic-soul aesthetic—“True Nature” sounds like an old funk song dropped in an aquarium. Many of the songs are built off of small instrumental passages that weave the album together: The simmering, festering bed of synths, bass and guitar in opener “Hide in Plain Sight” recurs in “We Ain’t Getting Younger Pt. 1,” which in turn pairs with its Pt. 2 to create the monumental core of the record. Eternally Even has also been touted as his most directly political writing of his career—pointedly released just before Election Day. This is another thing that, at first glance, could go almost awry—a topical Jim James record almost sounds like an oxymoron. James is not a literal writer, or at least not at his best when he’s being literal. His lyrics don’t work that way; his voice very much does not work that way. James can be most evocative when you have no clue what the hell he’s talking about. Who knows the meaning behind “Steam Engine,” yet it’s one of the most powerful songs he's ever written; this is the guy who wrote a song literally called “Wordless Chorus” and has penned numerous catharses built on “oh-ah” refrains and guitar freak-outs rather than narrative journeys.

But he winds up succeeding, thanks to the haunting quality hanging over much of Eternally Even, reflecting the tensions of 2016. In fact, James only occasionally dips into concrete imagery you could associate with America’s political climate, with other songs only making oblique references. Sure, it’s clear where “Same Old Lie” is coming from, with lines like “If you don’t vote it’s on you not me” and “Is there any peace to be found in a lifetime?” Otherwise, it's one meditative note among many: There’s the rumination on mortality in “We Ain’t Getting Any Younger,”and then the more personal reckoning in “Eternally Even.”

The album’s impact is rooted in how, collectively, humanity searches for hope for the future. As the album draws to a close, that seems to be where James wants to lead us. After all the twists and ruptures across the album, we get the floating hymn of “Eternally Even”—a song with James in near-reverie, letting his voice glide over an instrumental that sounds like clouds parting. That’s where the James we always knew comes through: offering his trademark transcendence, that voice cutting through the haze and murk of the album, of this year. And it acts as a salve when we most need it.