Don't be put off or confused by "Holdin On To Black Metal," the new song from your favorite Southern longhairs My Morning Jacket. The Louisville, Kentucky, quintet haven't decamped to Norway to practice the Dark Arts and throw a sheep's head in the crowd. Instead, the second song released from Circuital, the band's upcoming sixth album, swings with the same guitar funk vibe that defined the best songs on 2008's Evil Urges.
On "Metal," My Morning Jacket's fuzzed-out psychedelic soul blends 1960s Tropicalia with a horn-drenched interlude reminiscent of classic up-tempo soul albums. Children's choirs are inevitably a gamble -- more experienced bands have tried and failed -- but My Morning Jacket's risk works, as the choir provides a melodic counterbalance to the gritty guitar riff that anchors the track. Also, anything involving a bunch of kids yelling "Black Metal" is a good start.
Lyrically, the song uses the extreme metal genre as a metaphor for retaining your childhood pleasures, with frontman Jim James singing, "It's a darkness you cant deny/But it don't belong in a grown-up mind/Distortion finds its place in a youngster's eyes/Coming into life you need its grind/But at a certain point you gotta let it go/Or it will cross the permanent threshold."
My Morning Jacket's Circuital is out May 31.
+ Listen to My Morning Jacket's "Holdin On To Black Metal".