Songs: Ohia: The Magnolia Electric Co. : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Songs:Ohia, the moniker Jason Molina uses when he makes music, follows up 2002's penetrating Didn't It Rain with eight more lonesome highway songs on The Magnolia Electric Co.. Molina surrounds his down-home sincerity with guest artists like Mike Brenner, whose lapsteel guitar haunts the album with a barbed-wire shrill, and Scout Niblett, whose stunning lead vocals on "Peoria Lunchbox Blues" add a pleasing femininity to Molina's lyrics. Songs:Ohia is often compared to Neil Young or Will Oldham, and here again, especially in songs like "John Henry Split My Heart," such associations are inevitable. But Molina's lyrics are his own. When his voice buckles on "Just Be Simple," as he sings "Everything you hated me for/Honey there was so much more/I just didn't get busted," it wavers only because of the weight of his words. It's an eloquence that permeates throughout The Magnolia Electric Co., providing more than enough power to keep its listeners turned on.

DAVID MALLEY
(March 18, 2003)