Jim James’ heavenly croon may remain no less powerful, but that doesn’t make My Morning Jacket’s recent transition from Duane & Gregg to Seals & Crofts any less appalling. Sure, Evil Urges was (I hope) most likely just another transitional phase from a band that seems to take more and more pleasure in sonically experimenting with every album; nonetheless, those hungry for melodic, crunchy Band-esque Southern rock need some temporary placeholder until My Members Only Jacket (my new personal name for them) return to test our patience yet again.
Ladyhawk may be from Canada, and they may execute Dixie-worthy riffs, but that’s where the Band comparisons end. Of course, just because they can’t compare to the Southern-fried majesty of Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel (Robbie Robertson was an asshole, but I guess he was a great guitarist) doesn’t mean that Ladyhawk haven’t included three of the best straightforward rock songs of the year on their sophomore effort, Shots.
“You Ran” and “S.T.H.D.” are quick gut-punches that hit just below the two-minute mark; the former admonishing some nameless woman (this is Southern rock, after all) backed by insistent, Springsteen-friendly drums and buried, smeared guitar streaks. “S.T.H.D.,” on the other hand, concerns itself with the phoniness of youth’s obsession with modernity and artifice (“Stick to your poetry/ ’Cause out here, the truth will bring you shaking to your knees”) before breaking into a hell-raising, fanged chorus of “na na na”s.
Shots’ triumphant moment of taut songwriting, however, comes in the form of “Fear,” as a slinky guitar line gives way to a throbbing vamp with singer Duffy Driediger pleading, “I just want to feel something other than fear / I don’t want to back / But I can’t stay here”. Of course, the fact that follow-up “Corpse Paint” drags like the painted doesn’t help for pacing, but the double-up of sparse anti-torch songs “(I’ll Be Your) Ashtray” and “Faces of Death” establishes a devastating, slow-burning mood suitable to lie down in a ditch.
Shots isn’t a perfect record by any means; opener “I Don’t Always Know What You’re Saying” and “Night You’re Beautiful” come off as derivative modern rock radio attempts, and the aggravating chorus of the aforementioned “Corpse Paint” doesn’t do the record’s coherency any favors. However, by the time the epic closer “Ghost Blues” enters its nasty twin-guitar breakdown, you’ll want to pour yourself another drink and hit Shots’ high points anyway.
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