Songs: Ohia

The Magnolia Electric Co.

Secretly Canadian

Country. The stigma the genre brings is devastating. The world of cowboy hats, faithful hounds and rusting Ford pickups is either groan-inducing or somewhat familiar territory. Independently-minded artists like Neil Young, Palace Music and Wilco have tried for years to bridge the gap between rock and country.

The Magnolia Electric Co., the latest from Songs: Ohia, is a paradigm of this musical tradition. The album will leave listeners confounded as to how songs that veer so close to self-parody (such as “Peoria Lunch Box Blues”) can be so utterly enjoyable. With its Southern-inflected vocals from Jason Molina, haunting background harmonies (which recall Patti Smith) from Jennie Benford and slow, steady arrangements of guitar and piano, this is no typical rock album. But it might have been your father’s in the mid-70’s.

Songs: Ohia dig deep into heartland rock traditions, and the results are startlingly good. Opener “Farewell Transmission” is enough to sell you on the album right away. It’s an apocalyptic tour-de-force: seven and a half minutes of crunching guitar and vivid lyrics which culminate in the band chanting “long, dark blues” over a snarling guitar solo. The memorable refrain shows up again in “John Henry Split My Heart,” another epic rocker that ties up the album’s thematic cycle of hardship and loss in a turbulent, changing world.

Thanks to Steve Albini’s production, the album benefits from a rough and gritty sound, as well as a rotation of singers. Most memorable is Lawrence Peters on the delightfully old-sounding “The Old Black Hen,” which marks the point at which the album is unmistakably country music. It’s bereft of the sort of irony that hipsters get a kick out of, but the album’s sincerity and raw beauty are charming.

—Christopher A. Kukstis

A Band of Bees

Sunshine Hit Me

Astralwerks

Appearing on the scene out of what seems like absolutely nowhere, A Band of Bees has scored a hit with Sunshine Hit Me.

The vision of Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, A Band of Bees sounds like a more cheerful Beta Band hailing from Jamaica. Somewhat difficult to classify, their music falls somewhere in between indie rock, trip-hop and reggae.

The album hits the ground running with “Punchbag.” In forty-five seconds, the song is built layer by layer, starting with a xylophone bassline, adding a heavy dance beat and finally bringing in Butler and Fletcher’s crucial, unique falsetto vocals. Miraculously and wonderfully, these disparate elements somehow make for an enjoyable and relaxing listen.

From there, the album travels nowhere if not up. Like the instrumentation, the lyrics focus on being playful—they are simple, upbeat and irreverent. Occasionally, the band does away with them entirely, as in the ambient, obviously Air-influenced “Sunshine,” whose only lyric is the song’s title. And just for kicks, they follow up with the energetic and fun “A Minha Menina,” which is sung in Portuguese.