Indiecast - New Albums From Japanese Breakfast And My Morning Jacket

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Steven and Ian open this week's episode by noting the arrival of a new Kanye West album, and the difference between saying stupid things and doing criminal things (0:00). Then they transition to talking about the new album from Japanese Breakfast and whether it lives up to her previous work (14:27). They also talk about My Morning Jacket's career, and how their latest record fits with the overall catalog (32:39).In the mailbag, they discuss the recent class-action lawsuit against Tool and the meaning of having a "unique" setlist (45:53).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the latest from Weatherday and Steven stumps for Dutch Interior (55:41).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 231 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talked about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about new albums from Japanese Breakfast and my Morning Jacket. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He thinks the new Kanye is a return to form. Ian Cohen, Ian, how are you?

Is that for real? I mean, it's there. Like, okay, I'm not going to. kind of front. Like I did not listen to 20 straight minutes of this album, but I did or actually I think it pops up 10 minutes. I did not listen to 10 straight minutes of it. But I've read about it and there was somebody saying that there was a Nelson Munt's Haha sample and I'm like, wow, man, I don't want to listen to all this one. But fortunately on the YouTube track list, someone broke it down. There's one song that's, you know, the title's like ha ha ha hyphen something else. So I'm like, I'm going to skip right to that.

So it's not like a lot of this album does sound like MF Doom and there's even an MF Doom sample, but it's not like a sort of thing where you make the entire beat out of the ha ha. That's Kanye chat. Like I actually probably put more time listening to this album than I did with like Donda 2 or like the ones you could actually stream. This one is available on X the everything app and then you got to go to YouTube. this feels very, very illicit. So I like to be reminded that Kanye is a man in his mid-40s. Because that explains him putting a Nelson Munn's sample on his latest record.

For those who don't know, Kanye Westie released a new album this week. It's called Bulley. He's been teasing this album, I feel like, for a while, by posting swastikas on social media. Is there a swastika on the album cover? I don't even know if there is an album cover. Okay. The way I've experienced it is that you go to a YouTube link and it shows a film, which is their child beating a series of Japanese wrestlers with a plastic mallet and it's all done very artfully.

You're going to tell me it's like a AI slop and I believe it. but it does seem like there's, I don't know, thought, foresight that went into it. So I think it's an album. Like, I don't even really know what to call it. Yeah, I mean, you showed me that GQ story. Yes. Where they said that the album was surprisingly good. But it brings them no pleasure to tell us this, though.

Yeah, you know, my stance on Kanye for a while now, and this is my stance, I think, in general, when it comes to problematic musicians is that there is a line between behavior that is, shall we say, falls into the asshole lane and behavior that is actually criminal. And I think the criminal behavior,

that should be shunted off into a different thing where I think you should be canceled if you are actively harming people in some illegal way. Whereas if you're just an asshole, I don't know if you should be canceled, but I also don't have to pay attention to you.

And Kanye has definitely been in the asshole, like the alienating level. He's always been one, really, in his entire career, but he's moved into the upper strata, the 1% of A-hole. I'm going to say A-hole from now on, because I don't,

we already have the E, we already have the E sticker on our podcast. We don't swear very much. Yeah. But apparently we've sworn enough that we get the E. So I was thinking about this, I think he started wearing the MAGA hat in 2018.

I think that was around, that was when he was on SNL. Okay. And did that Donald Trump rant at the end. Oh, God. I forgot about that. Yeah. So,

and that was, you know, that's post-life of Pablo. I don't know if you had put out Donda or the God album. He might have put out Yee at that point. The one where, yeah, where I'm bipolar and it's awesome,

like the one with like the Wyoming Mountain album cover. Right. That's when you were still getting, like the thoughtful think pieces about Kanye. Yeah. Like should we separate the art from the artist? Think pieces about Kanye. And then at some point,

then he put the MAGA hat on and then a lot of critics just checked out at that point. I'm not checking out necessarily on Kanye. I'm the MAGA hat point. Like I'm not totally checked out then. But the swastika thing, when you're wearing the swastika shirt in public, that's when I'm looking at my phone and doing the Irish goodbye. out of the Kanye party. That's what I'm leaving, I think, at that point.

Because then you, I mean, is he a Nazi or not? I have no idea, but you are the onion headline about Marilyn Manson at that point. You know, going door to door just to offend people. Like, that's at best what you're doing when you're doing the swastika thing. And his music, too, just has not been very good lately. Although, again, people say that this album is better than what he's done. Yeah. his last few albums.

And I could say that it's an interesting distinction between, like, crimes and being an a-hole because, you know, you could say, like, I'm not going to listen to this rapper because they committed, like, a murder off tape, but, like, the album itself doesn't seem to promote it. Whereas, like, Kanye's behavior about him saying on X the Everything app, yo, my new sound anti-Semitic. I'm paraphrasing, but, like, not by much. it's like the album itself probably promotes that so it's not necessarily a crime but it's kind of closer

to the thing that we want to shun um as far as the album itself i mean it it feels like 2004 when you were getting like you know faces of death or like you know you get pictures of like isis doing like beheadings or like this stuff on the internet that just seemed like i shouldn't be watching this this makes me feel a certain type of way which I can't quantify. I mean, that's kind of, I felt like I shouldn't be listening to this album. It also just feels uncanny and unreal. Like, he says, or Kanye says that like half of the vocals are AI and like, I believe that. It also like lacks drums for the most part. So it sounds not altogether different than like Mike or rappers of that ilk who are, you know, really critically

acclaimed right now. But I had this thought, like, I think it, the like a good if you told me this album was all Kanye AI I think that would have like a much better chance of being a good Kanye West album the one actually made by Kanye West in 2025 uh because you can get the ticks you can get the um you know you can get like the kind of styles with the samples and all that which apparently this one does it has a lot of recognizable samples from like mf doom and can but I'm like listening to this I'm like what am I supposed to do with this thing? Am I supposed like I think and I thank God this past week I've been off work and doing writing for the most part remind me of like 2013 or 2014

and I just like feel so lucky that I don't my livelihood does not depend on me having an opinion and publicly expressing opinion about this album well mine doesn't either thankfully because I'm again I'm checked out of the Kanye business

I feel like it's been so long since he just put out a song that was pleasurable to listen to? Like, remember that with Kanye? He used to put out songs that were, songs that you want to play at a wedding. Like the Gold Digger era. This is like 20 years ago now. This is ancient history.

But there was that time where, like, oh, yeah, like, let's put on a Kanye song. And this is something literally grandparents and grandchildren can come together on and enjoy. Well, to that point. And 20 years later, we're in the swastika era. You know, it's an amazing arc. It's a fascinating arc. It's a great material for a documentary. I know there already was one made on him,

but there's been so much has happened since then. You got to make a new documentary about Kanye. Well, to that point, I found this out when I did a little bit on Kanye for, like, CBC. He was at the Grammys in 2025 because he had this song, Carnival with Ty Dalla sign and Rich the kid. That was an enormous hit. I mean, like, hundreds of millions, if not billions of streams. Like, he still makes hits, which was absolutely shocking to me because, like, I never heard that song before. Oh, that's what I mean.

That's not the same thing. You have, like, a big streaming hit. I'm sorry, having a big streaming hit versus having a hit in 2005, it's not the same in terms of cultural ubiquity. Like, there's something weird with some of these streaming. It's just like how that Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars song is, huge. Do you know what I'm talking about? This country song that they did? I've not heard it. It's been number one on Spotify forever. I don't know if it still is, but like it was for most of 2024. This song is supposedly one of the biggest in the country and yet like

I've never heard this song. I feel like it's not a song that's like in the atmosphere in the way that pop hits used to be. There's just something weird with how these songs live and Clearly they're popular, but again, it's not like the grandma and grandkid dancing at a wedding-type popularity that I'm talking about, like that a song like Gold Digger had. Yeah, because I hear Sabrina Carbenter, I hear Chaparone, you know, at the gym, I hear at the supermarket, like, if I don't actively try to hear Carnival, if I don't like hang out with like 18-year-olds, it'll completely pass me by. You keep asking me about Playboy Cardi. I do. Because you've been listening to the Playboy Cardi record. This is another record that I do not have to hinge my livelihood on in terms of having an opinion about.

So I'm not going to voice an opinion about it. I do think it's interesting. You know, we're talking about criminal activity versus just being an a-hole. Didn't Playboy Cardi, like, choke his pregnant girlfriend? Yeah. Or he was accused of that in 2023. And, you know, not to say that you shouldn't write about his record, but it is interesting that. that that can happen and it's not part of the narrative of this huge record that comes out

whereas someone who says horrible things that does become very dominant and look I'm not saying the horrible things but Kanye should be ignored I think they're all worthy of discussion but I don't know I just think it's interesting that that's not being discussed at all really with this record yeah it's kind of the what we call in the mental health uh community the doorknob conversation where you have like an hour long session and then when the patient walks out the door they like say something extremely important and it's like man we should have spent more time talking about that and that's like that that happens with like you know playboy cardi and ken carson a lot of artists from like the opium uh world which is now like the critical

true north um that they mentioned it like way at the end and it's like yeah this this much to consider and then they just kind of pass it by. But yeah, I've been asking about the Playboy Cardi album because it's probably the biggest deal for the narrative in 2025. It's hugely popular. And also, Playboy Cardi has been since 2017, one of the most consistently critically acclaimed rappers. It's like an event album that we were talking about a few weeks back,

but it's also something I just want to know what you think about. Because to me, it's like, What if Yeez-is was as long as like those Kanye Alams we can't remember the names of that came out in 2020, like Donda 2? It's, it is just Grand Canyon-esque generation gap. And it'll be interesting to see how that one plays out throughout the year. Because when I first heard it, I'm like, yeah, this is getting like a 9.2 minimum. And it seems like there's some pushback on it because it's the, like, it's, like, it's, so long. I don't, I've listened to a lot of 75, 76 minute albums before and, you know,

one of them's in recommendation cornerbone. It's 30 songs. It's just, you, you get to track 10. It's like this feels like it's never, ever, ever going to end. I think that was true with the Blade album of last year and pretty much all of like the big rage rap, you know, type albums that are happening now. So glad to be out of that game. Yeah, I got to say that it's a mutually beneficial situation for me with the Playboy Cardi record because I'm not that interested in it. And I feel like no one is interested in my opinion on it. So, you know, we, everyone can be happy here. You know, I can recuse myself from this conversation and whoever is interested in this record,

they can just say, like, well, I was not interested in this person, you know, mouthing off about it anyway. So I'll just leave it at that. But again, like the, I mean, the cancellation thing is such a type of, something to talk about. But there is an interesting dichotomy that goes on sometimes about statements versus actions and how sometimes statements loom larger than actions in a weird way. And how, I don't know, I feel like that's still an evolving situation. Not that I'm trying to cancel Playboard Cardi in any way. I'm not. I just find that to be an interesting aspect of that

story. Perhaps that'll become a bigger deal as that album is out in the world for a little bit longer. Let's talk about a record that is in the indie sphere, or at least in the Indycast sphere, and that is the latest from Japanese Breakfast. It's called Four Melancholy Brunettes and Sad Women. It is the first Japanese Breakfast album in four years. It follows up Jubilee, which was a critical favorite, and I think a somewhat commercial favorite. It certainly moved Japanese Breakfast more into the mainstream, although the record came out. pretty much concurrently with the best-selling memoir by frontwoman Michelle's honor,

which of course was crying in H-Mart. And that was an undeniable commercial success on the New Year Times bestseller list for more than a year. It's the kind of book that you see people reading at the airport. It's the kind of book that middle American book clubs read. It's the kind of book that, like, if you're an author, you want to achieve that level of I mean, really the only thing higher than what Crying and Hmark did is if you are turned into a film or like a lucrative HBO series. That's really the only step beyond and that may still happen for crying in Hmart. But now she's back with a new record and I wrote about this on Uprocks. It's up right now. You can go check it out.

I'll just say up front, I'm not a fan of this record. I'm sad to say. I am a fan of Japanese Breakfast in general. I did like the last record Jubilee. To me, to my ears, this record feels like a iteration or a reiteration of the previous record with a bigger budget and more prestigious personnel, including Blake Mills,

who worked on the record, a very sought-after producer. He also worked on the Lucy Dacus record, which we'll talk about next week. He's also involved in the perfume genius record, which is also out today. That's out today. It is? Is it? I don't think it is. I think it's like April 4th or something.

Is it? Okay. Yeah. It's definitely else. Okay. I forget when that, you know, I'm having a hard time remembering release dates. I don't know if you have the same thing. It's very confusing.

Like, sometimes, like, when things are coming out and when they're not. And like, PR people do this thing now. all the time where they send you an email to announce another email that they're going to officially announce an album for? Yeah. So sometimes I'm like, wait, is the album announced yet or is it announced next week?

And then I forget about the previous email. It's very confusing. So anyway. But it is out next week, next week. Perfume Genius is out next week. Yes. Okay, so, okay, and so is Lucy Dacus. I know the Dacchus is out next week as well.

We could talk about Blake Mills here in a minute. He's worked on a lot of records I've liked. I'm not crazy about what he's bringing to these records. I don't know if I should blame him for this, or maybe it's just what the artist want to do. But the records that he's worked on have this very sort of string-heavy, sort of baroque pop sound that I've liked in other contexts. I'm not really loving it on these more recent records

where that's coming into play. Like the Japanese breakfast and the Lucy Dacus records to me are pretty linked sonically. Like they remind me a lot of each other. And I'm trying not to be biased because I'm just hearing them at the same time, but I really don't think so. I think there's something very similar there. And we made jokes about this when these albums were announced. And the videos came out and they were very sort of like Barry Lyndon looking, very old school. You know, people wearing wigs and, you know, I mean, Lucy Dacus has like an oil painting.

of herself on the cover of her record. But there's something about this new Japanese breakfast record. I'm curious for your take on it. On one hand, I can hear the craft involved and I can hear how it technically counts as a leveling up record. Again, because she's working in a studio, Sound City in Los Angeles, very famous recording studio.

And again, working with Blake Mills. There's a lot of famous L.A. session players on this. record, including like Jim Keltner, Matt Chamberlain. But at the same time, to me, I'm sensing like a sense of exhaustion on this record. It feels like creative exhaustion. It feels like, it feels to me like a side project now of a famous author who also was in a band, whereas before it felt like she was a musician who happened to have written a book. But now, I don't know.

There's something about this record that to me, it feels. like a little bit, not an afterthought, but, you know, I was listening to the old Japanese breakfast records, like the ones that were more DIY sounding a little, you know, certainly less lush than this record. And I think the great moments on those records are, you can hear her reaching for something grandiose that she isn't going to be able to achieve because she doesn't have the budget for it. But like, the thrill of it is in the striving for the grandiosity. And you hear this in a lot of great indie rock songs. You know, like a band just striving to sound huge on like a shoestring budget. And it's thrilling to hear that striving when it really works. And like now she has the budget for it,

but like the urgency is no longer there. And the result is this record that I think is very pretty, but like it feels emotionally inert to me. And I just didn't find it very involving ultimately. It was a, it's a record that I think is fine when you're listening to it, but one Once it's off, I'm not really, it's not really lingering with me in any real way. What was your experience like? Because this record's getting good reviews. I feel like my review that's gone up, we'll see, you know, more reviews are going to come out as the record comes out.

Generally very positive. I'm definitely more on the negative side with this. I don't know if I'm just a negative guy or if maybe people are rubber stamping this record a little bit. I'm inclined to think the latter. but, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, the reviews I've read, and by the way, this album right now has an 89 on Metacritic,

which means it's like more critically acclaimed than FKA Twigs or what have you. But a lot of the reviews I've seen have been like rehab. It's like there's no way you would have known that if you wouldn't read the press release. But, you know, and I get it. It's like from the moment this album dropped into an extent like the Lucy Dacus one as well, you and I have been just talking about whether this is not just going to be a dud or a flop or a memory. old album, but maybe like a real turning point, the discourse where a lot of Gen Z artists that were like the center of attention a couple years ago start to make their, I'm using this word loosely

dad rock albums, like in 2017, how these were the artists that were ascendant and like the national and LCD sound system and fleet foxes and so forth just kind of sounded like they they were like straight up dad rock like still very popular but like outside of this. the center of discussion. And, um, I mean, with my take on Japanese breakfast, I was kind of surprised to hear that this was the first one that she had done in a, like, a real studio because I didn't hear, uh, the previous two albums as sounding like low five. They sounded like pretty darn clean to me. I'm a psycho-pop truther. That's my favorite of their album. And yet that one does sound like a bedroom artist. Also shout to the serio gum article that, uh, revealed Foxing's role.

in starting the Japanese Breakfast project, I had always thought that, like, Michelle would be like, yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Don't talk about that band. Like, don't talk about that realm, which I came from. But, you know, like, I've always felt like Japanese Breakfast is an artist and a person who I admire and the albums never really matched.

That I felt, aside from a few songs, Jubilee, was kind of forgettable. the previous album as well. And I also forgot that the big pop hit on Jubilee, B-Suite, was a Wild Nothing co-write, which, who knew that guy had been? I mean, I knew that guy has bangers in them. Those first two albums are awesome. But when I heard this album, it sounded just like a lot of window dressing,

like the strings and, you know, there's like Gamelon in there. Like a lot of things that you would signify as like cinematic or like level. up and there's a lot of big words and big concepts and once it's done i've forgotten about it almost completely with the exception of the jeff bridges uh guest vocal on uh i had to look that one up also you mentioned uh jim it's called men and bars there's a song called men and bars where it's a duet between michel's honor and jeff bridges shows up and it's a weird cameo but it works and i think it is a song that shakes the record a little bit out of, frankly, this malaise type feeling. Because again, I think that, I mean, I've enjoyed Japanese breakfast records, I think, more than you have.

I like Jubilee. In my review, I wrote about her record, Soft Sounds from Another Planet, which I think is still my favorite record of hers. And I think that's a good mix of her starting to have better production values, but also still being in a zone that feels more like the first record, PsychoBomp. And even this new record, there are songs that harken back

to that a little bit. There's a record, I think it's called HoneySounds. Honeywater, that's my favorite. Honeywater. That's it. Yeah, and it harkens back to that a little bit. It's the least sort of Baroque pop sounding song on the record.

Just like that sound, there's something about it where and maybe this is more of like a larger statement about this generation of indie artists that we're talking about. Like you said dad rock. Look, that's a loaded term. To me, dad rock is something that denotes guitar oriented indie rock. And that's not what this is.

This is easy listening type indie rock. This is like the soft rock. And whatever you want to call it, the NPR music or the Starbucks music, you know, Like that kind of, like, coffee shop sounding indie rock, which I think gets very sleepy. And maybe those artists that you were talking about from the previous generation, it feels like maybe they started to veer into that. Like, I think people that would have issues with later period national records, for instance, would probably say, I miss the shouting Matt Berniger records,

and where they just started using drum machines and pianos on every song, or at least it feels like that. That's where I started to check out. By the way, I don't totally subscribe to that point of view, but I think that is for the people who have checked out of the national. That's the main complaint with them. I think with these artists, you can see a similar trajectory, although some of these artists have never really rocked at all.

I mean, I don't know if Japanese Breakfast was ever like a hard-rocking band, but there's definitely a easy listening aspect to this record that feels kind of sleepy, I think. And, you know, I read one interview that Michelle Zonner did for this record where it was with Vulture. And it was a good interview. And she was speaking, I think, very genuinely about just the difficulty of touring and how it was difficult for her to adjust to how much they were on the road for Jubilee and also, you know, contending with just like the literary fame that, that corresponded with that. And it just made me think, is there any part of her that would just want to be like a successful author? Because that seems like a much better life, or at least an easier life, than being in an indie band and playing all these festivals.

It's like, you can just like kind of chill out and collect, you know, royalties and, you know, do all the things that you get from being an author. And that had to deal with being a musician. I mean, clearly she loves it. but I just wonder at what point does being a writer take precedence over being a musician when you are so successful as an author and that seems like an easier better life than being an indie musician I also think with this album like a Japanese breakfast like famously did every single festival in existence and maybe this record is kind of meant more as a studio piece because I don't think she's going to be bringing like a string section on the road or what have you

But, you know, as far as like the malaise and everything and my invocation of Dad Rock, I know this is kind of a don't threaten me with a good time statement to the current audience. But the album that I thought of when listening, even if it doesn't sound exactly like it, was Sky Blue Sky, in that it's very almost like force, aggressively tasteful, like in a very, you know, a very protracted way. But also the expression of our. artistic fatigue that courses through here. I think it's an honest expression of what's going on.

Is it an entertaining or an interesting expression of it? I'm not so sure. And I wonder if Japanese breakfast does have like a Wilco. I know Wilco is a huge fan of hers as well. If she does have a Wilco-like arc where she just kind of comes around every three or four years to make a new record, whether this one gets maybe the contrary. choice. You know, it's like, oh, this isn't the one with the hits, but this is the one where it's like

she was kind of alienating people. But I guess if she's trying to alienate people, that's not working either. I'm very interested to see what the conversation around this album is by the end of the year. You know, I think that's really what will determine things because I think it is almost guaranteed to be well received. I mean, she's a great interview, like, cool person, does a lot of cool things, interesting to talk to. you kind of want her to like be on your side.

So I would be very interested to see if all these reviews really go the distance. So I just want to compliment myself on my restraint from the sky blue sky reference, which I think is totally wrong. No disrespect. But like I'm always mystified when people say that's like a tastefully or aggressively tasteful record because I think you're just talking about Nell's Klein guitar sound. That's really the only difference between any other Wilco record. And like the ones that came before in Sky Blue Sky.

It's the fluttery guitar solos that Nelson Klein is playing. Otherwise, sonically, it's not like any different. It's not like there's a bunch of strings on there. It's not like they're doing anything dramatically different production-wise. And like there's also like a lot of famous songs on that record. Yeah. Possible Germany's on that record. You know, like a lot of favorites.

Like if this record becomes her Sky Blue Sky, that's a compliment to this album, and I don't think it will be. Because I don't think the songs are there. I think there's a lot of great songs. I don't even want to compare her to that record, because I don't think that does her any favors to compare her to Sky Blue Sky.

I just, for me, that comparison doesn't ring true. But I think this record will be well received. I do wonder if it's an album that will have legs that people care about at the end of the year or even, like, at the mid-year. I'm a little skeptical about that. I mean, I feel like in general, so far in 2025, I'm hearing a lot of records from legacy artists

that I feel like are a little underwhelming. That feels like a trend that is starting to kick in. Maybe we could talk about that with my morning jacket here in a second. Certainly, I think the Jason Isabel record for me personally is a bit of a step down. Maybe we'll continue this conversation with Lucy Dacus next week. It feels like the year of underwhelming records from legacy artists. And maybe we're just at that point in a lot of these artists' careers,

like where not every one is, not every record's going to be a home run, and maybe this is the year where you're going to be getting that album. So, I don't know, we'll find out, I guess, as we progress. Did you have anything else with Japanese breakfast, or should we continue? No, I think we nailed it. But, yeah, I like Sky Blue Sky too, but it was just like the sound. I'm like, yeah, the vibe is similar.

I'm not, there's absolutely no way this album. This is as good as Sky Blue Sky. But like, what else is tasteful about that album other than the guitar sound from Nels Klein? And I'm not just directing this at you. I direct this at anyone. I think just the lyrics about like doing yard work or like or being around the house. Like, you know. That's like one song.

I know. That's one song. Yeah. That's hated here. Yeah. He's not singing about laundry and every. It's not a concept of them about doing the laundry. Yeah.

You know? It's just like the, what the reputation is in the same way that like, you know, other albums get like stereotype because like the most the most immediately notable things are about that but yeah it's like I know I know how you feel I'm like yeah I think that that's a that's true in pitchfork world because of my good friend Rob Mitchum the review that he wrote about Sky Blue Sky which I strongly disagree with he also didn't like a ghost is born so that's the biggest argument I have with

Rob when he's wrong about both of them so we talk about mid 2000s will kill records. That's a very mid-40s rock critic conversation to have. But anyway, we'll table sky blue sky for a second, or not for a second, for a while here. We'll get to another aging rock band that has a new album out this week. Of course, I'm talking about my morning jacket. Their 10th album out today, it's called Is. And I think the I is lowercase. Yes. Which, you know, I don't know what you're doing with that. Like the lowercase album titles, I'm generally against. If you're making your 10th record and you want people to take it seriously,

do you really want to do the lowercase thing. I would do all caps if it's my 10th record, but that's just me. I wish it was in caps because you know how annoying it is to describe an album called Is without using the word is twice in a row? I really had to do a lot of gymnastics on that one. Yeah, it's like you're begging people not to be able to Google. this album in the future. I mean, that is really the issue here. You're preemptively burying your own late period record here in a way, my morning jacket. But yeah, this is the 10th album from my morning

jacket. It's their first in four years, their first since the self-titled record that came out in 2021, which I guess exists. I don't know if anyone's ever like revisited that album since it came out. It's fine. Not a terrible record, but not super memorable anyway. This new album is produced by Brennan O'Brien, of course known for working on many classic albums

in the 90s. He's also worked with Bruce Springsteen and the Wallflowers and God, who else? Incubes. They worked with Incubis, of course. Many rock, but I think he's that kind of producer. where if you're a band in your 40s and you're looking to make a return to form record,

maybe he'd be a guy you'd come to. I associate Brendan O'Brien with very naturalistic sounding records. He works quickly. I feel like he generally aspires to capture a band's live sound in the studio, pretty non-fussy working methods. And this record, again, I think is fine from My Morning Jacket. I'm curious for your take on this,

because you wrote about My Morning Jacket this week. You actually ranked My Morning Jacket albums, which is an interesting exercise, because I feel like the albums that are considered to be great are agreed upon. You know, I don't know if there's like any late period records that My Morning Jacket fans would stump for. I know that the MMJ fan base

and some of them I'm sure are listening. They're big on evil urges. I feel like they always push evil urges for being secretly one of the best my Morning Jacket records. And maybe they push for the waterfall, which came out, I mean, that came out 10 years ago. 10 years ago, yeah.

Which is crazy. I mean, I think, you know, their trajectory, and I'm curious for your take on this, but I feel like after Z in Okanokos, it's almost like a different story with this band. I think it's clearly, you know, there's a clear golden age with them. And then they make evil urges.

And then Jim James starts to do solo records. Jim James also, I think, starts to feel a little ambivalent about the image that my morning jacket had early on what rose them to prominence, which was that they were like this new Southern rock band. You know, like you see them on Conan doing. one big holiday and they're playing the flying V guitars and there's lots of hair and they're head banging and it's just like rock with the R-A-W-K version of rock and it feels like he spends the next several years backing away from that drifting more into sort of this like R&B

psychedelic rock mix and we're maybe trying to sound like Marvin Gay on songs, but it doesn't totally work. And they've always had this tension between what they do on record and what they do on stage. And it feels more than ever that when MMJ puts out a new record, it's really about telling fans, hey, there's going to be another tour. And you should be excited about that. Which is great, because look, look, they're still a great live band.

Next time they come to my area, I'm going to go see them. but it does feel like these records that they put out and we're talking about for a while now have felt like an afterthought am I wrong? I mean is this record to return to form? I mean, I've listened to it. I thought it was fine but it didn't blow me away in any fashion. Yeah, I think to your point about making it very

SEO unfriendly, you know, your new album's called Is and the previous album is self-titled. You know, is there like something Freudian going on here with that? But yeah, with the album ranking list, I mean, they've been making OK records for much longer than they've been making incredible records. I want to be clear from, let's say, 1999. Actually, let's say at dawn. That's when I first discovered. I'm not going to front like I had like the Tennessee fire on CD at that before at dawn.

But from that period, like up until 2005 and even I guess up into including Okonokos, I would say like this was the best American band in my view. The records were incredible. The live show was like life changing. I was thinking about 20 years ago in June. I saw them preview a couple songs from Z at the 40 watt in Athens, Georgia. It was 5 billion degrees that night and like absolutely mind-blowing. And evil urges, that's an album that I kind of go back and forth on, like on a month-to-month basis. I talk about this in my rankings list about how it's the most divisive and divided album.

It's the one where there would probably be the most variance if you ask 1,000 my Morning Jacket fans to rank albums. Other ones feel more secure. I'm of the argument that the waterfall is, it's up there. I think that's an album that really gets underappreciated. I agree. Yeah, but as far as return to four, also the waterfall too, which you wrote extensively about, which I forgot that came out like during the pandemic. And I really thought that was done a disservice with being dropped when it did because it is like a very exhausted

album and it really matched the mood but a lot of bands at that point were just kind of doing data dumps. I think if the waterfall too was called like anything else it would have been celebrated more. But return to form is a funny thing to talk about with my morning jacket

because I did not. I thought the last album was mostly terrible. But I was kind of alone on that. I read the reviews of the self-titled and it was like my morning jacket is rejuvenated it's returned to form is their best album since z and what what i've learned since evil urges is that every my morning jacket album is the best one since z every single one is a return to form every single one is them

getting their mojo back and i don't think that's really true of this one i thought it was interesting that all the songs are like under five minutes long which kind of is brendon o'brien's m-o who he works with a lot of bands that are kind of jam band friendly workhorses. Obviously, Mastodon is not a jam band, but they are known for their live show. And I think there's a lot of overlap between them and like Pearl Jam fans or My Morning Jacket fans. But I just hear the, it's like, it's just my morning jacket making songs. And I think that's really what separates post-eval urges from pre-evil urges that there was a real

emotional undercurrent. I think there's an emotional undercurrent in Waterfall. But there's not this sense of my morning jacket figuring out who they are and just striving to make classic albums. One thing that was in the outline that you didn't bring up is like you asked if there was a mystery of where you put Z. Now, if I'm looking at me from the outside, it's like Ian's like not a jam band guy. Ian loves the Benz. Z's got to be number one, right? I wouldn't be sure.

See, that's interesting because I feel like, okay, because I put that in there. like where do you put Z? Because I do think that there is a contingent of My Morning Jacket fans that would actually put either at Dawn or It Still Moves at Number One. I actually would put It Still Moves at Number One personally, just because I feel like that's the record where you get the sort of ambition of Early My Morning Jacket, where you feel them trying to make like the next Great American Rock record.

And it also has like a lot of the live-bent. energy that you get from the live shows. I mean, because honestly, the album I listen to the most for My Morning Jacket. If I could just say any album, I would say Okunoka. This is my favorite, my Morning Jacket record, because that's basically like a greatest hits album, but it's played live and it's played by My Morning Jacket at their peak, like on the Z tour. I mean, like, if you wanted to see them, it would have been like around that time, mid-2000s.

So I love that record. I mean, I feel like there's people that would maybe say Z is like a little too slick. So maybe they'd put it not too low, but it would be maybe three or four. Yeah, I would agree with that. And yeah, Okonoko. It's like, that's just, I was thinking about putting that on the list, but that's such a cheat code because it is a document of the best live band at the time at their peak, but also a greatest hits during a point where, you know, like there's my morning jacket, early albums and the EPs were a little unruly. So it's like a real like, hey, oh, you don't think you're into my morning jacket. Check this out.

And I mean, but all the albums were incredible then. So I, it still moves. Just a mind-blowing album. You'll wait and see where it comes up. It should be up today. But my favorite part was re-exploring the albums that, like, I had kind of forgotten about, like, circuital. or just listening to evil urges straight through for the first time and forever. Yeah, just really reacquaint myself with like the past decade of those records.

And, you know, these are, they're not bad, but like I actually like those songs more when I hear them live. Because when you hear like love, love, or like out of my system in between one big holiday and run through, the hero is like kind of not like oh this is an album that could not match z at all but yeah this is like part of the trajectory and i really do like i'm not expecting any of these albums to um you know recreate the magic of z even though they really really try to more so than trying to make it still moves um but i i just wish that they're they seem more kind of like invested emotionally or artistically rather than just like putting out songs where two or three will make the set list for the next couple years and then we'll forget about it completely but they've earned

the right to do whatever they want to do anytime you've read it one of the many interviews you've done with Jim James he just talks about like how emotionally physically spiritually he is just so beaten up from like being on the road for the past 20 years he is I mean the albums themselves are pretty genial, but like he's, it's a rough living. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if we want to talk about like the last, like, say, 20 years of their career, it feels like the waterfall is the record to check out. Like, if you haven't listened to new My Morning Jacket records since Z, I would definitely go to the waterfall.

You're right. I think Evil Urges has moments on it that are really great. Other moments where they're trying stuff and I could admire the attempts. but I think it's kind of a mess. That was also the period where they did the Metallica thing, like where they cut their hair and got a little glammed up, which is a little weird. And I think spoke to some confusion maybe with the band.

I mean, that was just like a weird time for that generation of bands. Like the late 2000s, a lot of confusion going on. And they are, I think, in that Pearl Jam zone now, like where, yeah, they're going to make the album with Brendan O'Brien. And I think fans are going to really care about. it and it's not going to make a dent outside of that fan base but if they come to your town and you have a chance to see them it's going to be a great experience so you know the albums you know they're respectable they're good this is still a great american rock band so go see them

if they're in your town you're going to have a good time um let's get to our mailbag here thanks for writing in uh it's always great to hear from our listeners uh you can hit us up at Indycast Mailbag at gmail.com. I think we have time for one of these letters. We have a bunch in our mailbag. We have time for one. Why don't we do the first one here? This is a good, this is like a newsy item for us to talk about.

Yeah. I'm going to take this one because it comes from a local. Kevin and Chula Vista San Diego. Shout to the formerly known as Cricket Amphitheater. I think it's named after some bank now. That's where I saw like, I think Weezer in the Pixies or something like that. Like, that's the San Diego venue where you go see that. I also saw The Cure there.

But Kevin, so please discuss the tool lawsuit. Yeah, and we can end it at that. But what is the definition of unique? So this speaks to two things. One, which is that there is a lawsuit pending against the ban tool. And it is predicated on the legal definition of the word unique. So, uh, right. Yeah, walk us through this one, Steve.

Yeah, so this is, I'll read from a vulture news item on this that ran this week. This is what it says. At the band's inaugural destination festival in Putakana this past weekend, attendees, some of whom sheld out thousands of dollars to be there. Wow, thousands of dollars. Raged against a promise of, quote, two unique sets, and they claimed that it was not held. They raged after a promise of two unique sets was not upheld. Instead, the tool in the sand festival, tool in the sand. I didn't know that part of it.

That's the best part. That's the best you could do, tool. Like, tool in the sand? I think that speaks to like a larger sort of half-assness here that the fans are upset about. Apparently, it was supposed to be two unique sets, but there were several overlapping songs. Ten were played the first night, then nine the second, with four repeats. apparently there's social media footage of people booing and hurling expletives at Maynard James Keenan and company during the second night

it's like oh you're playing prison sex again boo! Now one disappointed attorney who was present at the festival is initiating a class action lawsuit. Staz Ruzak, a longtime fan leading the case. Staz Ruzek, I think that was the name of the third tool record. Staz Ruzek told Vulture that roughly 100 attendees have already signed up. While he doesn't have a filing date in mind, Ruzek plans to do something as, quote, ethically possible,

as soon as ethically possible, after investigating all of his client's claims, I expect a few dozen more per day for the next few weeks he adds. So basically, Toul, they promised two unique sets, and they played two sets that had songs that overlapped over the night. And look, I love this story. And I love the story for very, for many reasons, one, because it involves Tool playing a destination festival in Mexico, which I can't think of- White Lotus.

That's what it needs to be. Yeah, it should be. I can't think of a band less suited to playing a beach festival than Tool. Like, do you really want to hear Tool at the beach? Like, I enjoy Tool. I'm not hating on Tool. I just feel like that's not really. beach music to me. But they're clearly influenced by a trend that I think, I feel like it originates

from the jam band world. I think jam bands were like the first ones to really do this on a big level, like where they were having these destination festivals, typically in February, where you go to Mexico, you stay at a resort and the band plays each night that you're there. And there's other bands that are there usually like the Grateful Dead have done this for a long time. or I should say Dead and Co has done this for a long time. Not the Grateful Dead. Fish has done this for a long time. And then Wilco started doing it.

I think my morning jacket does it too. Yeah, one big holiday is in Mexico. Right. Yeah, so it's pretty similar. So they followed the jam bands who have done this. And now Tool is doing this. And as far as the definition of Unique goes, like if I were Tool's lawyer, and by the way, Tool, if you're looking for a lawyer,

I'd be happy to represent you. I think the case I would make is that when we say unique, we mean that we're not going to play the same songs in the same order every night. We may repeat songs, but they're still unique set list because, you know, we've got some songs that are different, but they're in a different order. You know, like, yeah, maybe you're playing prison sex as the encore one night, and then, oh, you're going to do the switcheroo and do the opening song as prison sex on the second night. that is technically a unique set.

Now, the fans, led by Stan, or not Stan, Staz Ruzek here, I guess they're looking at it from the jam band perspective, which would be unique set means no repeats. So you're doing 10 songs one night and then a completely set of 10 different songs the next night. I don't know what, is there anything in the Constitution about this? Can we look to constitutional precedence? to settle this. I mean, I think Tool could probably make the case that they were unique sets

and get this case thrown out of court. I mean, that's my feeling on it. You know, because they didn't say, oh, we're going to do no repeats. They just said unique sets. So like, tool fans, you need to get on with the jam band fans. Jam band fans are big on no repeats. That, I think, is a more specific designation for something like this. Because unique is a very broad, vague thing. It can mean many different things. No repeats is much more specific. Yeah.

And also I can't believe they went with tool in the sand when prison sex on the beach was right there. Oh, my God. Just such a failure of imagination. Look, as like the resident legal expert on Indycast, I mean, I've always dreamed of being party to a tool-related class action lawsuit, you know. You know, if you listen to Ina in high school while playing Golden I-Sixie 4, you may be entitled to compensation, you know, like that tool kind of messed up my high school social life. So, you know, I feel Maynard James Keenan, I'm not going to say end company.

I got to respect Adam Jones and Danny Carey and whatever the guy is on the base. But this is just like kind of a, it's just a really just kind of funny story because the thing about Tool is that they are. known to be an incredible live act just with the audio and the visual. But to the point of like jam band crossover, apparently like Tool plays their songs flawlessly live. They do not vary from the album at all, which are also well known to be like pretty immaculately recorded and played. I think what's happening here is that there is a disconnect between

Tool and the actual show. There seems to, like, reading into this article, I don't think Tool kind of knew what they were getting into. They didn't know that they were supposed to play different sets. They didn't know, like, I don't even know if they knew they were going to, like, go to Coast or the Dominican Republic or whatever. Maybe they thought they could phone it in because it was the Dominican Republic rather than America.

But this case obviously has no merit. I mean, it's a right. Rock show. Unique, what does that mean? If it said no, unique was probably just a word thrown in there by someone haphazardly, and now it's just going to be probably thrown out of court immediately. Another thing is that Staz Rusek, I'm not trying to put anyone's, you know, legal

mind on blast because it's been a long-ass time since I've had to think of it. But you don't represent yourself in a lawsuit. Like that's that that's big If you're if you are the person who was disappointed that you didn't hear schism or StinkFist or That one song with all the Bill Hicks Audio I'm sure there are multiple ones Look I mean

Tool like is a don't play the hits live type of band Maybe this is just like kind of 4D chess where like they are just kind of showing like how people like the sheeple out there want unique sets rather than perfection. I don't know. This is, I just love how this is just a very 2025 dumb story, but also one where no one's really getting hurt. So, yeah, this is, this is great mailbag fodder. I like this because it is a stupid, stupid, stupid story, but also one that, like, doesn't endanger

people's lives. It's just funny. Tools funny. They're the most serious band to ever exist, and yet everything about them is funny, especially the fact that, like, their most popular songs are in some way, shape, or form about anal sex. So that's just kind of the tool dichotomy at play here. We've now reached a part of episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? So this is an album that dropped Wednesday.

If you're one of those people who is listening to our podcast the moment it drops at midnight on Friday, maybe you've already heard this one. But it is by a project called Weather Day. And the album is called Hornet Disaster. I jokingly called this one, I Am Emo Music, a la on the Playboy Carty album, because it has been very highly anticipated by a very online fan base for over five years. And it's also 76 minutes long. This is a artist who might be the biggest thing in rate your music history, like bigger than Alex G, bigger than car seat headrest.

It's a Swedish bedroom artist that's now signed a top shelf, which has released in a lot of incredible emo records over the past 15 or so, and indie records over the past 15 or so years. And I wasn't blown away by the one that came out in 2019, which is an online sensation. and it didn't blow me away like the first glass beach album and sung in a similar vein. But this new one, it's more accessible, a little more cleaned up, a little more microphones or neutral milk hotelie. It stays pretty strongly within the noisy, emo-inflected indie rock sort of mode. And it's also like the first emo album I've heard this year that has a real sense of ambition and scope. A lot of the stuff I've heard in that realm has just been kind of replicating what, you know, hot mulligan or origami. angel have done.

Yeah, there's a lot to this record, but it's shockingly consistent for something as long as it is. It is definitely something that I will be listening to throughout the year. It'll definitely make my year end list, which I can't say about a lot of what I've heard this year. So, weather day, hornet disaster. I want to talk about a band from Los Angeles called Dutch Interior, which is maybe the least LA band sounding band name I can remember in a long time.

I, whenever I listen to this record, I always think, oh, they got to be from Europe. I think about that for a second then I remember, oh, no, they're from Los Angeles. And certainly the record sounds like a band from Los Angeles. The record out today, it's called Moneyball. This is their debut on Fat Possum Records. And this is a pretty cool band. This is one of those kind of bands, like where everyone or most of the members are involved in songwriting in some way. A lot of the band members sing.

There's a real kind of loose type vibe to it. If I can conjure up the band, I'll bring up the band as a similar type of set up here. And there is definitely that kind of vibe, I think, to this record. A lot of, I would say, patio-friendly elements exist on this record. There's a real sort of rowdy country rock vibe to a lot of the songs. Other songs are a little bit fokier and more introspective. My favorite track on the record, has a lot of harmonized guitar soloing, a la Almond Brothers, which by the way, let's have more of that.

I'm a big harmonized guitar solo fan, so whether you're going to do it Alman Brothers style or Thin Lizzie style or Iron Maiden style, you know, there's lots of different styles of harmonized guitar solos. Pick one of those. I'm going to be in your camp. This is a band that, this is a record I've been enjoying quite a bit. I would expect that this band is probably much better live, than what they are on this record. They just have that feel to them. Not a full-on 80-jam band. I wouldn't say that they're jamming a lot necessarily on this record. But definitely just that sort of homey, loose,

let's get on the back porch and jam out some awesome songs type vibe. You're getting that on this record. Really good stuff. Again, it's called Moneyball. The band is called Dutch Interior. Out today. Check it out in a sunny place this weekend. Yeah, I'm actually interested in hearing that as well.

Like, I was really big on the fussed album that you talked about a few weeks back. Oh, hell yeah. I'm in this mode. I love me, like some Allman-style harmonies, some, you know, even like Wilco does some guitar monies on Sky Blue Sky to bring it back to that, as we always do. So I'm actually, and plus it's called Moneyball. You know that's it, you know, it's a good porch hang. That's right. You know, they got some sports cast in them, so that's always a good thing to get in the indie rock band.

Thank you all for listening to this episode of Indicast. We'll be back with more news, reviews, and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mixape newsletter. You can go to Uprocks.com backslash indie. And I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box.