My Morning Jacket: Z

As they reach this, their fourth and best album, My Morning Jacket provide more evidence that American rock is best left in the bands of beardy guys who don't live on either coast.

It's a stylistic swirl of an album, finding a territory of its own in a sort of guitar-informed, electronically enhanced rock psychedelia. But outlandish fun with it.

This, after all, is a band who lift a bit of the Hawaii Five-O theme as an intro to their goofy white reggae number Off the Record, and who can sound like Joshua Tree period U2 on some mind-altering substance on Gideon.

And who, on the likes of What a Wonderful Man and It Beats 4 U, can make you stop pining for that next overdue Flaming Lips record because they frequently touch the same emotionally uplifting spots.

There are a few musical hints of the good ol' boys they resemble. But it's how My Morning Jacket fuse seemingly disparate influences on both an individual song level and an album one, too. Another late arrival for that best of year list.

Label: Sony-BMG