“Our earthly bodies will surely fall,” croons Jim James toward the end of My Morning Jacket’s seventh LP, his tenor gliding over a dreamy R&B vamp. “But the love we share outlives us all.” James is rock’s wide-eyed poet, preaching the gospel of psychedelic love. And with The Waterfall, that message radiates stronger than ever. It’s been four long years since the band’s criminally underrated Circuital—though James veered into the mystic with his 2013 solo project, Regions of Light and Sound of God. That album’s evocative space-funk soundscapes teased the grandeur of classic Jacket, but its songs felt half-formed without the earthy anchor of James’ bandmates. The Waterfall’s opening anthem, “Believe (Nobody Knows),” arrives like a warm hug from an old friend. Bo Koster’s delicate synth figure creates a foggy atmosphere, deepened by James’ trademark quasi-spiritualism and nursery-rhyme cadence. Then the thunder erupts: Bassist Tom Blankenship and drummer Patrick Hallahan form a towering rhythmic engine, while Carl Broemel’s electric fuzz pierces through the mix. The Waterfall consolidates all of the band’s varied strengths, from twangy pedal-steel country (“Get The Point”) to shoegaze-y dream-pop (“Thin Line”) to epic-scale psychedelia (the showstopping “In Its Infancy (The Waterfall)”). “I wish you all of the love in this world and beyond,” James sings. A hopeful salutation from deep in the rock cosmos.