★★★★★
If you were going to choose one word to describe Jim James, then it'd have to be restless. Over the 15 years that he's been in the public consciousness as the main creative force behind My Morning Jacket, he has dabbled in all manner of different genres. MMJ started off as sparse alt-country balladeers before embracing anthemic Southern rock, jittery loops and slightly misguided funk, replacing half the band in the process...
- drownedinsound.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Imagine you're the frontman for a successful rock band. Over the course of your career, you've somehow managed to acquire not only indie credibility but a fan base sizable enough to pack arenas. You eventually decide to branch out and form new groups with talented peers. Maybe you decide to contribute to a film soundtrack or even accept a cameo in said film...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
As the frontman of psych-rock visionaries My Morning Jacket and one quarter of supergroup Monsters of Folk, Kentucky musician Jim James is nothing if not versatile.
His principal group are given to dabbling in more genres over the course of one album than many bands might dare tackle in an entire career, while his sweet, heartfelt tribute to George Harrison - released under the name Yim Yames in 2009 - demonstrated a talent and sensibility that could flourish in any setting...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-01
★★★★★
God, nature, and the meaning of life. What does it all mean? Jim James wants to know.
Such an existential line of questioning doesn't easily lend itself to clean answers or firm interpretation, but that doesn't keep James from trying to work it all out...
- consequenceofsound.net
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Jim James is the singer for My Morning Jacket. He does a good part of the band's guitar work, and writes pretty much all the songs. He also is the band's in-house producer. So why the need, after nearly 15 years, for a solo album, when My Morning Jacket are still a going concern? Isn't MMJ pretty much James' show, anyway? The answer must be in the process. No group decisions, disagreements, or arguments. Also, fewer constraints on time, and less pressure for commercial returns...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
For a guy defined by his band's take on "roots" music, Jim James' head has always been in the clouds. For the first few My Morning Jacket albums, he often recorded his vocals in an abandoned Kentucky grain silo, one of the few places that could give him the otherworldly reverb he desired. On any number of great My Morning Jacket songs-- "Gideon", "The Way That He Sings", "Circuital", "Golden"-- there's that moment when James cuts loose the sandbags and lets his voice pull the songs heavenward...
- pitchfork.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
For his solo debut, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James turned to a pair of deeply spiritualized works for inspiration. The first was Lynd Ward's wordless woodcut novel Gods' Man, which follows an artist unwittingly lured into a Faustian bargain. The other was Marvin Gaye's soul searing state-of-the-world takedown What's Going On. Both are unswervingly bone-bare and uncompromising. James' heady Regions of Light and Sound of God fits alongside them well...
- filtermagazine.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
With a title like Region of Light and Sound of God, you can tell that the debut solo album from My Morning Jacket's perpetual maximalist Jim James hasn't narrowed his sights. The album, self-produced and performed, sounds much like its cover looks - a ruggedly dapper man, paling in the wake of a pulsating world of neon that he doesn't seem to understand. It's that left hand that's the clincher - is it stroking his beard in confusion, or lighting up a cigarette and taking it all in...
- www.thelineofbestfit.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
MMJ man goes it alone with an eclectic, intricate LP... Hypnotic, psychedelic, soulful and ragged, My Morning Jacket are one of the most distinctive bands to come out of the American rock underground in the past decade. Much of that is down to frontman Jim James, who has a gorgeous but flexible voice and writes tunes that veer from country to space rock to reggae while retaining MMJ's absorbing, reverberating sonic palate...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2013-04-01
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