there last two albums are painful to listen to for me (James' strange delivery especially), but I still want to see them live again.

the problem isn't Jim's voice... not at all.

the problem is the songwriting. Jim has this idea that he wants MMJ to have this Ween/goofy/cornball-esque side to them and it hurts them a lot.

saw jim james tuesday night at the 930 club. played 2 sets, about 2 hours. the first set was songs from his solo album, i think in order, and 2nd set wonderful, hopefully, and songs from monster of folk, which i hadn't heard before (i dont own that album).

this band was good and tight, and he was very active on stage, a bit more than a mmj show. i thought the solo songs were excellent and had several interesting extensions and jams. his voice also was excellent, better than the last two tours ive seen.

Austin City Limits taping with Jim James 5/5

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i'm not saying his voice is a problem, its just in decline. his voice and their sound is always primary compared to their songwriting. i do agree that some of the songs off the last two albums have been sub par, but there are just as many, if not more, really good songs out of the last two. touch me 1&2, smoking from shootin, circuital, wonderful come to mind.

Congratulations!

I'm in the camp that enjoyed the last 2 albums. I agree that EU could have been cut a little, but songs like Librarian and Aluminum Park are fine by me. I haven't seen them since the EU tour, but those songs sounded great live.

If you cut half the songs out of the middle of EU(Thank You Too-Look At You), you'd have an album that stands up pretty well with It Still Moves and Z. As it is, it's just too long of a stretch with the mellow stuff and Two Halves breaking it up doesn't cut it.

Circuital has a really great 1-2 punch to start, and there's another nice song or 1(Wonderful) but it feels short on really great ideas compared to most of their other albums.

Far as JJ's cornballish weirdness, I think that really elevates Z in certain spots. The wailing at the end of Wordless, Into the Woods, "Laylow let the fetus rock", but the way he enunciates the end of certains lyrics, "I can tell by the way the smile, I'm smilin too" can be a little tiresome. It usually grows on me, b/c I can be a little obnoxious when singing along to it, it's just become kinda predictable.

what are these guy up to? it's odd that they're not touring in the summer.