A look back from point A to ‘Z’

My Morning Jacket details what it took to craft its classic album, now hitting 20 years.

- By NaTE JACKSON

SAM ERICKSON THE BAND My Morning Jacket in the early 2000s. It recently rereleased a deluxe version of album "Z."

There's no shortage of bands commemorating their glory days as decade anniversaries of albums fly by. Yet few landmark releases feel not only fresh but forward-thinking 20 years after they were recorded.

My Morning Jacket stumbled onto this kind of brilliance in October 2004 when it released its fourth studio album, “Z.”

Across 10 tracks of lush, euphoria-driven rock ’1’ roll, the band captured a notable tone shift in its sound that melded Southern rock, haunting folk and psychedelic soul laced with jam band energy. It’s a set of songs that still make up a huge chunk of the band’s live show. In September it performed the album in its entirety to a sold-out Hollywood Palladium for its 20th anniversary.

“We still play these songs all the time,” said frontman and principal songwriter Jim James in a recent conversation. “So it’s not like we broke up after we released ‘2’ and then we got back together 20 years later to play these songs, and it’s such a trip. We've been playing them nonstop for 20 years.”

Shortly after the release of its 10th studio album, “is,” the band put out a deluxe reissue of “Z” that includes four B-sides and a whole albums worth of demo versions of songs like “Wordless Chorus,” “Off the Record” and Dodante.

Recently James spoke to The Times about the enduring power of “Z” and the joy of going back to the beginning of the album’s origins to give himself and his fans a new appreciation for the groundbreaking sound the band created.

The rerelease of “Z” was prefaced earlier this year with a full-album show at the Palladium. What was it like revisiting the album on stage first before it came out (again) on vinyl and streaming?