My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall

On The Waterfall, Jim James sounds like a man at ease. With his 2013 solo album put to bed, My Morning Jacket’s first record in four years returns the veteran Kentuckians to their mid-noughties best. Where Circuital could sound forced and James’ proggy urges had infiltrated their music to the point where one more freewheeling guitar solo would have invoked the spirit of Rick Wakeman, Believe and Like A River are lighter, simpler and relentlessly upbeat.

There’s barely an ounce of fat on show as the record veers between the band’s country rawk roots, revelling in dashes of blues on In Its Infancy and the delicately finger-picked Get the Point. The Waterfall will rightly go down as a high point in My Morning Jacket’s output; an album to restore some faith in the somewhat directionless Americana genre, but above all, it’s a hugely enjoyable ten songs where Jim James’ voice soars to heights this band haven’t been in nearly a decade. [Stu Lewis]