Jim James

Uniform Distortion

US guitarist-songwriter cranks up the volume.

The longish interludes between My Morning Jacket activity have allowed leader Jim James to follow his own trail of late, be it last year’s all-covers album Tribute To 2 or joining an all-star cast for Lost On The River, based on rediscovered lyrics from Bob Dylan’s archive.

Uniform Distortion, his third original solo record, is his response to the information overload of the digital age and the porous line between media fact and fiction. Heavy themes demand heavy tools, and James gets to wig out in earnest here, his overdriven guitar squealing through Just A Fool and the cock-rocking You Get To Rome, which sounds like Elvis fronting a freaky glam-metal band. There are digressions into the spacey psych-soul of his previous solo work, but it’s not long before he’s cutting loose with the Ramoneslike Better Late Than Never and updating 60s garage-punk on Yes To Everything.

A carefree antidote to worrying times.