Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
Magnolia Electric Co. :: "Lonesome Valley"From Fading Trails (Secretly Canadian; 2006)
Every time I put on Magnolia Electric Co.’s What Comes After the Blues, I like the album more. There was something about the set of eight heart-broken love ballads and country rockers that, even though they didn’t much click at first, really seemed to grow on me with time. Seeing the band charge through most of the songs in a show earlier this year really cemented it; they attack the songs without hesitation, giving them even more force than they hold in their recorded forms.
It’s this sense of slow-burning growth that leaves me hesitant to pass judgment on “Lonesome Valley,” a track off of Fading Trails -- one of the six (!?!) Jason Molina/Magnolia Electric Co. albums slated for release this fall. Unlike the recently revealed “Get Out Get Out Get Out,” from Molina’s sparse, acoustic, harrowing Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go, “Lonesome Valley” has the full on Magnolia Electric Co. sound. Plenty of keys, country-fried guitar parts, straight-forward drumming, and Molina emoting.
The danger is, we’ve heard this all before. This song feels a bit too much like it would have fit as a perfect ninth track on What Comes After the Blues, and despite a few nice twists of phrase, Molina isn’t taking many chances. He makes fun of himself on-stage for his reliance of the same metaphors and images song after song, yet we still get talk of moons, ghosts, and stars here. Who knows what the rest of the material he’s going let loose with over the next few months is going to sound like, but this is sticking a bit too close to the playbook. Molina’s best material has been when he’s willing to really take risks and challenge expectations; this song just feels familiar and well worn.
Peter Hepburn :: 10 July 2006 |
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