3 out of 5

Produced by: Daniel Burton

Label: Secretly Canadian

Song by song, this is a great album.  Taking the first steps from Molina’s aggressively emotive Ohia debut toward the sparser sound of later albums, Hecla & Griper is a capsule of transition; of maturity.  However, that same attribute gives the disc something of a demo mindset: the tone flip-flops from song to song, and there’s an apparent lack of confidence to ride a tune out for longer than three minutes or so.  Stitched together as an album, then, these 8 tracks make for an uneven experience.  Once that expectation is set, though, there’s pleasure in the relative simplicity of the compositions: the nigh-punky kick-off of opener Pass; the passionate groove of Defenders; the subtle snark of Easts Last Heart.  There are more fully realized versions of these emotions elsewhere in Molina’s catalgoue, but it’s satisfying hearing witness to the artist’s initial forays into forging his identity.