This is something I would not have thought possible. My Morning Jacket has very skillfully combined the merits of its influences with the energy of its masterful live sets, and the resulting album, Waterfall (ATO Records/Capitol Records) is boring as all hell. There are moments of talent and, occasionally, of beauty, but they’re all squandered on a soundtrack for marking time, treading water, and walking in place.

Take, for example, “Spring (Among the Living).” This isn’t even a song, is it? I don’t mean that its structure is unusual or that it’s intentionally subtle. This is just an undeveloped assemblage of riffs designed to fill time at a concert. There’s no excuse for putting forth so little effort. And let’s be clear, I’m a fan of this band. I pay money for their music, and I’ve watched them play at venues of all sizes. I am of the dissenting opinion that Circuital might be their best album, but on Waterfall everything I like about them is missing: their vast diversity of sounds (think about the range shown on Z); their way of coaxing unique, five-minute crescendos out of a pedestrian series of chord changes (think “Victory Dance,” “One Big Holiday,” “Smokin’ from Shootin’”); and their desire to remain a moving target (think about how little Evil Urges has in common with their albums released just before and after it).

And the band knows what’s missing. They nod to their epic past on “Believe (Nobody Knows),” but the song is too repetitive to take flight. “In Its Infancy” will be a live favorite; it’s clearly designed to be played as the sun goes down and the crowd is lighting up, but it’s almost entirely atmosphere. For the first time in their admirable career, My Morning Jacket presents us with a collection of songs that each do only one thing. One is either a loud song or a quiet song or classic rock or soft rock. Everything is mushy mystery meat, bland and offensively inoffensive. I used to think MMJ were on our side, but this time their lack of standards has betrayed us all.