Circuital, out May 31, will be My Morning Jacket’s sixth studio album in just over a decade. In that time span, front man Jim James has also toured and recorded with indie supergroup Monsters of Folk, released George Harrison covers as Yim Yames, and collaborated with the Roots. (Also, once, the band was on American Dad.) But there was no big breakout moment, no overnight-success TV appearance or movie-soundtrack placement; all those things unfolded gradually. The band’s popularity — which is now at the level where they can play New Year’s Eve shows at Madison Square Garden — has developed in a kind of slow-boil crescendo, one that wouldn’t, in fact, be out of place on an actual My Morning Jacket song. This means that despite their stature, when the band drops a new song — as they have today, with Circuital’s title track, a warm, comfortable mini-epic that manages to be both immediately familiar and sonically adventurous over the span of its seven minutes — it feels less like a big, momentous occasion than a casual, welcome return. So: Welcome back, dudes!
Download “Circuital” at MyMorningJacket.com
