Magnolia Electric Co. - Trials & Errors [2LP]

Recorded only a few months after they had formed, 2005's Trials & Errors captures Jason Molina's new band Magnolia Electric Co. on one magical night in Brussels in 2003. It is a scintillating audio document of one of America's most important contemporary live acts evolving into something really special and doing what it does best - whipping an audience into a frenzy. This set captures Molina & Co right after Molina had retired the Songs: Ohia machine in favor of this powerful new vision of his. Two years in the planning process, the new project took its name from the last Songs: Ohia full-length album. 

Composed of a nucleus of four members, this particular show captures the newly christened band on its first tour in its earliest state. Still a four-piece with Pete Schreiner providing the back beat drum pulse, Mike Kapinus on bass and melancholic trumpet, and the two Jason's dueling over guitar solo space: Molina's down-tuned guitar matching his now settled tenor voice, and Groth's Creedence-channeling rhythm guitar and solos filling out the upper register. With Molina as the principal songwriter, the songs are as classic as his fans have come to expect over the course of seven Songs: Ohia full-lengths (all released between '96 and '03). 

With his new band, however, fans can finally enjoy a stable and more-than-able rhythm section that just gets tougher and tougher with each performance. Like a juggernaut that simply chews up everything in its path, on Trials & Errors, the new Magnolia grinds through three old Molina favorites (two from Songs: Ohia's Didn't It Rain and one from the Songs: Ohia album Magnolia Electric Co.), three songs which would be released on the subsequent Magnolia Electric Co. studio album What Comes After the Blues  as well as four songs only existing on record in their live form as presented here.