Customer Reviews

What Comes After the Blues

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One thing that annoys me a bit about being a 30-something is how much great music I missed in the 60s and early 70s. Its not the same thing when someone tells you about as it is when you discover it for yourself. People told me about Tonight's the Night and Music From the Big Pink, but I discovered WCATB all by myself. I picked it up in a CD store and immediately dug the name, and the cover. The fantastic title was just the cherry on the cake. It was one of those CDs that just says: "I've been waiting for you". So when I took a listen to it and discovered that it was a) right up my dirty little street and b) recorded by Steve Albini, indie guitar god and now-famous producer, I just had to have it. WCATB is a real gem if you love 'folk rock' and hate that description in equal measure. I much prefer Cosmic American Music (with all due credit to Greil Marcus, who coined the phrase). If you are familiar with the likes of Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs and Will Oldham's Viva Last Blues, you'd better step to this pronto. Based largely around Jason Molina's tremulous vocals, with perfectly measured dabs of electric guitar, bass, drums and - oh, yes - piano adding to the atmosphere, it is another instalment in the fantastic road trip that began with The Band The Band. Travelling along that great cosmic highway, it spends a night at the Motel Tonight's the Night to be sure, but all those Neil Young comparisons really miss the point. MEC are their own thing, and they have considerable greatness in them. The companion piece to this - Fading Trails - is also superb, but I have even higher hopes for the future. If they can just sustain this level of genius for 45 mins plus, they will have something that is equal in stature to anything that was produced in the halycon days of rock music. Ease on down the road indeed.

Excellent album. I would have thought thay would have a hard time folling up thier previous album, but this is almost as good. Somedays I may say its even better. This group deserves to be heard.

This Ohia/Magnolia CD kicks it a bit more than usual without destroying the Molina angst. While I read some negative comments about the band moving toward a more 'entertaining' profile in this album, it's fun to rock out once in a while (breaks up the solo-guitar plaintiff tone.) I think you have to look at Molina/Ohia/Magnolia's entire body of work rather than (like the sight-challenged men and the elephant story) any single release.

...whose life can live up to the lie.

Every song is subtle and well crafted. The lyrics will break your heart. If you are looking for kick a** rock listen to Van Halen.

This is the first time I've been so moved my an album that I felt compelled to use this forum to give feedback about (and promote) an artist. Excuse me, Artist. This album is the first exposure I've had with Jason Molina's music, and if his previous efforts are half as moving, I'll be buying them soon enough.
He's dark he's brooding and it's beautiful. The cathartic, yet familiar tone of his compositions convey raw, palpable emotion. His self-awareness is also in evidence in wonderfully simple "Northstar Blues" and "Hard to Love a Man" with it's asiatic interludes. The brevity of the album doesn't bother me, if it were longer I believe it would dilute the emotive power. Simply put, Molina is one of the strongest songwriter's I've heard in a long time and definitely worth supporting.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this album, but I love it! Molina draws his inspiration from the classic, lonely sounds of Hank Williams and it shows, albeit in a more contemporary vein. Like the best moments of The Wallflowers, often better. My only wish is that it was longer than 8 tracks!

Seems like the Indie kids jumped on the bandwagon 1 album too late (or 2, if you count Trials & Errors.) Somehow Molina has lost that stark, focused, bleak energy that served him so well previously. Now what we're left with is a bland, boring, 80's bar-band solo act. Does anyone remember The Lioness? Those were good songs, delivered with all of the wrenching plaintiveness of a penetrating songwriter. Now we get a shallow, plunky, whiny, gloss version of what we used to love. I guess it's better than a lot of sh*t bands on their best days, but still a let down. And what's with everybody saying this is a "hard-charging rock" record? The only song with cajones is the opening track, the rest is a pallid imitation of a better time. And by now the Indie kids have moved on & the fans have either walked off or acquiesced to a lesser sound. Here's hoping Molina walks off alone into the woods & finds the real gloom again.