O-Nation: O is the One That is Real: Album Review: My Morning Jacket's "Celebracion de la Ciudad Natal"

BAND: My Morning Jacket

ALBUM: La Celebracion de la Ciudad Natal

RELEASED: April 19, 2009

It's time to pop the album review cherry. Let me explain a few things about how I receive my music though. First of all, I don't buy albums unless they are from a band that I truly support 100%. Secondly, I'd say roughly 75% of my current music library is made up of downloaded songs. Like I said I usually only buy albums from my favorite bands...most of the albums I download I tend to find by accident. Ok, not completely. Usually what happens is I find a big ticket I'd like to go see (Coachella, Rothbury, Bonnaroo, etc.) and I compare bands between the tickets and find bands I've never heard of before. Then I do some research to find out what that bands sound is like. If it sounds intriguing I download it and give it a good listen. Some of my favorite bands have been recently found using this guaranteed O-method, especially My Morning Jacket.

I received this album earlier this week from a friend of mine from Louisville, Kentucky. For those of you who don't know...My Morning Jacket is from the same town. Anyway, he's a big music buff like me and can recall seeing MMJ in their earlier days when they played bars in the area. He claims that lead singer Jim James used to always come to the clubs early and watch the openers and that he "never wore shoes and smelled like garbage." AKA...he smelled and looked like a dirty hippie. NOT that there's anything wrong with that. Anyway, so he went home and brought back this CD for me knowing how much I liked the band. Best thing about it is that album could only be bought on Record Store Day, AND it's from the store that it was originally recorded in!

So Jim James is a big home town kind of guy. You know...likes to go home and surprise the fans and sign autographs, and visit his favorite independent record store, Ear-X-Tacy. So that pretty much sets you up for the story behind this album and it's exclusive National Record Day release. I can't really put Yim Yames words into my own so take a look at this...

"hello friends. we are proud to announce and release a lil live ep that was
recorded right in our very own hometown of louisville, ky. a few songs were
taken from our in-store appearence at our beloved and fabled record haven
“ear-x-tacy” and a few of them were taken from our concert at the fabled
“waterfront park.” see if you can guess which is from which. we are excited to
make this a special release that you can only get at your favorite local
independent record store, as now more than ever we all need to take the time to
celebrate what our favorite local record stores and businesses mean to us - the
value of community/human to human non- internet related physical and spiritual
contact and supporting the hardworking people in your community who strive
everyday to keep it unique and keep it local. we are fortunate in our travels to
get to see many wonderful things, but one of the most distressing things is the
increasing “normalization” of the world and how all these places are starting to
look the same- everywhere you look more and more towns are starting to be filled
with the same gigantic corporations, and while some of these huge companies
undoubtably provide valuable services, it is so important that we realize that
it is our local businesses and people (and natural landscapes, but thats a
different letter) that are what make different towns worth coming to…things you
can only get in one place, made and sold by people who believe in what they are
doing…people who are trying to keep good weirdness alive in this crazy dome.
god* bless all of you, and god* bless the world and all that kinda shit.
-yer
pals, my morning jacket

p.s.- *the word “god*” is used here meaning anything you want it to
mean and is a trademark of globo-chem worldwide." - from www.mymorningjacket.com

Well.. thats the story behind the album...my favorite part is the p.s. at the bottom. Definitely gave me a good chuckle.

So after anxiously awaiting several hours to get home from work, I popped this album into my CD player and was immediately surprised by the sound quality of this recording. A lot of bands live albums drown out certain instruments, or sometimes the vocals can fade in and out, or you get a certain staticy feedback from the amps on stage clashing with the recording equipment. This album has not of that. It may be one of the clearest and crispest sounding live albums I've ever heard.

This album is filled with great tracks from the band too...check out the set list...

1. Evil Urges 2. Highly Suspicious 3. Gideon 4. Where to Begin 5. Librarian 6. Phone Went West 7. Dondante

They couldn't have really picked a better set list. "Evil Urges", "Librarian", and "Highly Suspicious" are all hits off of their latest album. "Gideon" is one of my favorite MMJ songs...one of Yim's strongest vocal pieces. Just kinda mellows you out. "Where to Begin" is an acoustic and vocal piece that is just simply stunning to hear live. I've seen them three times now and I've never heard it played live until this album.

The last two songs are probably my favorites on the album. "Phone Went West" is one of their better live songs. In fact...it's sooooooo much better live than the original album version. It's faster, the vocals are much louder, and the guitar is more tropical sounding. It almost sounds like it should be a Jimmy Buffet song. Meanwhile..."Dondante" may be the bands true live masterpiece. I've never seen a recording of this song with a runtime under 12:00. This may be out of left field, but if I was to compare to any other bands ultimate lengthy-jammy-guitar solo filled-epic, I would compare it to Led Zeppelin's "Undertow". The timing of the songs are even pretty similar. Either way, listening to "Dondante" on this CD brings back some great memories from New Years Eve this past year.

By far, the best part of this album is trying to figure out which songs are from their show indoor at Ear-X-Tacy, and which songs are from their outdoor show at Waterfront Park in Louisville. You know it's a well recorded album when you can't tell the difference between indoor and outdoor acoustics. Well done.

I haven't decided on a ratings system yet, but for this one I will go with points out of 10.
This album gets a 7.5 out of 10...an awesome sounding live album with a great set list, but still a live album and no original material. Go listen to it...if you can find it.