The Waterfall (Deluxe)

My Morning Jacket arrived at Northern California's Stinson Beach in late 2013 thinking only about making an album. The band was not prepared to be seduced. But within a couple of days, Jim James, Tom Blankenship, Patrick Hallahan, Carl Broemel and Bo Koster were in love with Panoramic House, a studio perched on a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The natural beauty of the surrounding landscape, located only about a half hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge, combined with the almost mystical serenity flooded them with a charged sense of possibilities.

"For me, every record has the spirit of where we made it," explains singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Jim James. "Stinson Beach was so psychedelic and focused. It was almost like we lived on our own little moon out there. It feels like you're up in the sky."

On the new release there are moments that reach back to early albums such as 2001's At Dawn and 2003's It Still Moves, the record that gave the band a much broader audience. But the experimentation that marked 2004's Z, 2008's Evil Urges and James' 2013 solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God is clearly in effect.

The Waterfall sounds like history and decades colliding, like a record made by fervent music fans in search of that tingle up the spine. Inveterate music geeks will hear echoes of vintage rock and pop as MMJ continues to honor its influences without aping any of them; The Waterfall sounds like nothing else but also warmly familiar.

"That's kind of the sound of this record, and my life, the sound of the page turning and not being sure what's coming next," said James.

"The freedom we went into this record with took a lot of the pressure off, as far as what to do and how to do it," Hallahan added. "The mantra was anything goes, no stone unturned, it'll be done when it's done."