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My Morning Jacket
CHOCOLATE AND ICE
(EP; BADMAN)

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The druggy, tuneful jams on this six-song EP often sound like Thom Yorke covering the Magnetic Fields in Symphony Hall. The Louisville band combine Jim James’s languid echoey vocals with Latin beats, folky acoustic guitar melodies, bluesy bass lines, and occasional funk undertones. Despite the psychedelic haze in the production, "Can You See the Hard Helmet on My Head?" and "Sooner" boast a straightforward poppiness. The 24-minute jam "Cobra" starts with a bass line that could make James Brown feel like sugar and spice, then laces slide-guitar solos, trancy synthesizer, and bongo beats with vocals that occasionally take on a Spanish accent complete with rolled "r’s." But the ever-morphing James also evinces an Adam Sandler–like ingenuousness on "Holy" ("I can prove the bitch is holy"), and he spins out a wholesome/seductive Southern drawl on "Sweetheart." The cha-cha-cha beat on the latter completes Chocolate and Ice’s serene smorgasbord, which is marred only by the requisite answering-machine track.

BY ANGELA LAW

Issue Date: May 16 - 23, 2002
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