My Morning Jacket – Okonokos

My Morning Jacket never quite breaks loose, and swings only insofar as all American music swings, or pays lip service to the idea. At times, they’re reminiscent of a calibrated sludge-rock group like the Move. They shuffle big blocks of sound, just as the Move did on their Shazam and Looking On records, way back in the early 1970s. But whereas the Move had a sense of humor, and sent up the whole idea of heavy rock ‘n’ roll by making songs by Tom Paxton and Mann & Weill sound just as ridiculous as their own forays into nonsense, My Morning Jacket are a post-jam-band group, which means they get by on texture and sheer formalism. There’s nothing to send up; they’re interested in exploring the non-specifics of their musical vocabulary.

Which isn’t to say My Morning Jacket aren’t a good band, or that they don’t come up with some interesting ideas. In fact, the live two-CD Okonokos might be the ideal way to experience them. A song such as “Lowdown” evokes other songs; it works off a simple two-chord vamp, with a sustained guitar note ultimately signifying more than the vocals. “The Way That He Sings” sports a guitar figure you’ve probably heard a thousand times, and the song itself passes pleasantly enough.

Patrick Hallahan’s drumming is ham-handed, but in a sophisticated way — sort of like the Move’s Bev Bevan, or like Big Star’s Jody Stephens, only less swinging, savvy and funny. They get almost funky during “What A Wonderful Man”, and the way they fold in a southern-rock guitar riff, voiced in thirds, illustrates how cunningly they manage to update the whole post-Allman Brothers tradition without making a big deal of it. Like the Allmans’ Live At The Fillmore East, this is a live double that likely will stand as the guide to the working method of a talented band, drum solos and all.