THE MOLENES' debut album 'This Car Is Big' was a gutsy, roots-rock affair. It was – and remains - a fine, Uncle Tupelo-style blowout, ideal for anyone who relates to rousing anthems celebrating hard times for honest men.
It seems that Dave Hunter's men have been consolidating on the 'Roots' part of their roots-rock approach across the course of the intervening twelve months. The self-explanatory 'Songs of Sin & Redemption' is an excellent follow-up, but it draws water from a much deeper well of traditional folk and country than its' predecessor.
Hunter is credited with 'things with strings' as well as the regular guitar, vocals and harmonica, and its' easy to hear why on the opening 'Redemption'. With its' earthy banjos, mandolins and rattling drums, it's the sound of something particularly wicked and Appalachian careering this way. It's by no means the only time they get back to the land, either. Witness the fingers-flying Bluegrass-influenced sound of the blitzing 'Step On It' or 'Beacon's Farm': a Violent Femmes-style country death song complete with burning haystacks and retribution by moonlight. Whoo!!
Elsewhere, Hunter & co peddle a convincing line in folky fatalism. Songs like 'Grey Haze' and the sad'n'blue 'You Are Not Gone' (“there's more than one way to drown around here”) are graceful semi-ballads aching with devastation. The Dave and Jess Hunter duet 'Silver Stars' taps into Gram and Emmy Lou territory and the mighty fine 'Pain Express' is especially striking, pivoting around a bassline akin to Booker T's 'Time Is Tight' before sealing the Southern soul deal with Tom Ferry's Spooner Oldham-style Hammond organ.
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The Molenes' desire to get their amped-up kicks seems a little more muted as a result, though there's no denying the convincing cut'n'thrust of the album's trio of crunching rockers. 'There's A Suffering' mainlines on Replacements-style energy; the equally no-nonsense 'Charlotte Lights' is a rousing road song and the punchy 'Fall For This Again' demonstrates The Molenes are rapidly patenting their own brand of gritty'n'spangly, Byrds-y rockers.
Nonetheless, it's fitting that 'Songs of Sin & Redemption' should culminate with the brooding hangman's tale 'Trouble In The Corn'. Built around a droning, dobro-assisted country-blues, it's a graphic meeting-your-maker tale (“old Jerry danced on the scaffold, old Jerry kissed the sky”) and the perfect way for an album veering 'tween the angels and devils to take its' final, whiskey-stained breath.
'Songs of Sin & Redemption' is a tremendous sophomore effort. The Molenes are rightly becoming renowned as one of New England's best Americana-related outfits and their authentic grasp of roots-rock stylings is fast becoming a joy for the ear to behold.
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