The last Songs: Ohia album I heard was Ghost Tropic. That was the perfect name for its haunted post-folk, what with the sharp guitar chords, the percussion rumbling like uncontrollable spirits and Jason Molina's disconsolate wail. But each of his works as Songs: Ohia is a different beast, taking shape around the group of musicians he's currently working with. So I was a bit hesitant when I heard about the new album, which was recorded in Philadelphia with Jim Krewson and Jennie Benford of Jim and Jennie and the Pinetops, amongst other musicians. I wanted more of the Ghost Tropic sound-- a fractured structure just this side of collapse-- but here they were recording songs live in one take, with no overdubs, and garnering comparisons to the warmth of the Muscle Shoals Studio recordings during the 1970s.

Within one listen, Didn't It Rain convinced me that it was worth paying attention to its own terms. Songs: Ohia's compositions have a strange way of warping time for the listener. How else could the opening title track slip by me after nearly eight minutes? It begins in a slow progression of acoustic chords, and almost immediately Molina is singing about the eye of the storm, and those caught under its downpour. The chorus wells up with trilling guitar notes and Jennie Benford providing backing vocals, and Molina warns, "If you think you got it/ They're gonna beat it out of you/ Through work and debt." Calling a recording "intimate" can be cliché, but I swear you can practically hear the floorboards creaking. The song swells and sighs for minutes like a vintage Neil Young ballad, until right near the end when Molina asks the question in the song title.

I thought that Didn't It Rain might be more light of heart, like some of the Palace records Songs: Ohia is often compared to. In the previous song, Molina asks the group audibly to bring it back for another chorus, and it doesn't detract from the music at all. But it seems his tropical depression has lingered, despite titles like "Steve Albini's Blues" and "Cross the Road, Molina." The former lopes along deliberately, the pace set by banjo-like plinks and made more tense by the relative silence that pervades. Molina, Benford and Krewson join together to sing, "See its sulfury shine/ See the big city moon/ 'Tween the radio tower/ 'Tween the big diesel rigs." Reviewers often mention Molina's blue-collar background, but I'm not going to try to prove anyone's cred. Someone (probably Krewson) howls the line "see the big city moon" again, and the last-dime desperation in his twangy voice is authenticity enough.

There's a shared imagery that becomes evident, especially on "Ring the Bell" and "Cross the Road, Molina," two songs in the middle of the album that flow together as a conceptual piece. It's here that Molina might seem too far gone in gloom, as he begs, "Show us how bad we're outnumbered," but the compositions never reach the Gormenghastly nature of "apocalyptic folk" groups like Death in June. There's a bleak beauty in the arc of the amped electric strings, and when the Chicago moon "swings like a blade," Molina may even be painting himself as the Andalusian dog. You can trace the lyrical themes: light, darkness, the moon, fire, Chicago. Those themes are evoked again on "Two Blue Lights," a brief blues piece about the light from a bus and the moon, about hell and your hometown. Is it the scraping sounds of the frets that make it so earthy and uplifting?

I'll throw my cards down now: "Blue Factory Flame" is a classic. Drum-kit percussion enters for the first time, setting a steady 4/4 frame as Molina asks, "When I die, put my bones in an empty street/ Bring a Coleman lantern and a radio/ A Cleveland game and a fishing pole." The black-hearted procession continues as he describes ghostly iron ore ships coming home, and climaxes in the refrain "paralyzed by emptiness." It's as apt a summary of depression's effects as I've heard, and the electric guitar emits a stark, weathered sort of sadness.

Musically, "Blue Chicago Moon" evokes more of that aged Rust Belt atmosphere, but Molina admits that you're not helpless when you're hunted by the blues, and he calls out over and over for you to "try to beat it, try to beat it." From the first song, it seems that Didn't It Rain is intended as a bulwark against sorrow, and that commitment appears again on this last track. The compositions here are elemental, filled with flame as well as steel and stone, and they tie Molina's native Ohio together with his current home, Chicago. In the process of recording another incredible album, he's discovered that light is most visible when it's flickering alone in the dark.

-Christopher Dare, March 13th, 2002