5. The Tennessee Fire (1999)

It’s a testament to the consistency of MMJ’s output that the album ranked second-to-last on this list is as strong as The Tennessee Fire. It’s a pretty lo-fi affair compared to what came later, lush in its own way but less defined than subsequent MMJ releases. Here, you can see the template, oddly, for almost everything that followed. The overarching vibe is the alt-country indie sound they primarily trafficked in originally, but in “The Bear” you can hear James learning the ropes for crafting sweeping catharses, which he will later employ in “Gideon.” In the badass redneck groove of “It’s About Twilight Now,” you can hear their ability to write a rock song that’s foreboding or triumphant — it depends on what you bring to it as a listener. “The Dark” almost prefigures post-Z MMJ entirely: spacey vocals over a synth wash cede to a funky chorus, which in turn yields to Southern rock middle eight before wrapping back around to that chorus again; it’s all the genre-hopping of Evil Urges wrapped into a three-minute sketch. And, ultimately, that’s why The Tennessee Fire is ranked where it is: it’s a strong album that suffers in relation to what came later, made to feel like a sketchbook. It’s a beautiful sketchbook, no doubt, featuring some classics in “Heartbreakin’ Man,” “Evelyn Is Not Real,” and “I Think I’m Going To Hell,” but things weren’t quite refined yet. After all, this was a different band — James and bassist Tom Blankenship are the only members remaining from these early recordings. Still, this is important listening, marking the beginning of their story and a remaining artifact of a different MMJ, one that was of dark swamps and chilling alt-country-tinged songs that spoke to the particular brand of bleariness that can only come with stumbling out of the bar in the cold moments before dawn.