My Morning Jacket, The Tennessee Fire

The Tennessee Fire is My Morning Jacket's first album. It is also probably their worst, but only because one of them has to be. The album is not as immediately impressive as many of their efforts. It is quite subdued, reverb-heavy and focuses mostly on ballads. The most popular songs, like The Bear and Evelyn Is Not Real, are truly beautiful. But the album also contains They Ran, Nashville to Kentucky, War Begun, I Will Be There When You Die, By My Car and I Think I'm Going to Hell, songs that are comprable to anything the band has released since. The band occasionally rocks out on songs like the scream-filled It's About Twilight Now and The Dark but mostly, the album is a slow burn, revealing its glory in time. Give it a try, but don't start here.