Damn it, Zak, that was fast! But you nailed it and found Evil Urges even more agreeable than I did. Still, I feel the urge (pun intended, now that I think of it) to make a few things clear about MMJ’s new album that just won’t do as a mere comment…
1) I hated this album on first listen, or at least I was wary of it. True, it is a brave departure, but it seemed silly, full of Jim James giggling and impressing us with his voice. His upper-range, by the way, now officially surpasses Rev. Al Green on the ‘No Way Should a Manly Man Be Able To Sing That High’ chart.
2) Even as I was smugly explaining to people that, “Man, Evil Urges eats it,” I was secretly jonesing for it. I couldn’t help but come out of the MMJ closet after dinner on Friday when I begged the DD of our group, to whom I had just moments earlier been defaming the album, to let me hear the opening track and namesake of the album just one more time before we arrived at the party.
3) It’s all I’ve been listening to for days now.
4) There are still flaws I can’t quite get over. ‘Thank You Too’ sounds like a cover of a Delphonics b-side, but without the romance of those falsetto crooners. ‘Librarian’ sets-up like a celebration of those who prop up literacy, but devolves into a puerile sexual fantasy. It, I suppose, fits into the theme of the album, but is kind of creepy and cheap.
5) None of that ruins the album. Maybe lacking the lyrical weight of a masterpiece, its varied yet consistent musicality and melody are worthy of MMJ’s catalogue, and are a step above the very good work that James and Co. have already done.
The dynamism of Evil Urges is going to cause a lot of Big Talk, and some blogger will go to sleep tonight after impressing himself by being the first to smell a rat. But screw prescience… it’s all about preference anyway.

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