4 out of 5

Label: Secretly Canadian

Produced by: Edan Cohen (engineered by)

In my mind, the first of the (unfortunately short-lived) latter-day S:O era albums, Didn’t It Rain finds lead Molina’s songwriter persona stripped down into something very working class; struggling; humping over the hill and humble and producing simple emotional, folky ballads.  Not that the project ever veered too far off that path, but Jason’s poetic wanderings felt more yearning before, and compositions – prior to the oblique and wonderfully haunting Ghost Tropic – had a looser edge to them.  Soon we would see Molina pair up with My Morning Jacket, Will Oldham, and eventually “plug in” for the Magnolia Electric Co., and, in a way, Didn’t It Rain was the first step down that relative experimentalism, as it emerges, 6 minute, 7 minute song at a time, as a wholly confident and honest album, sparse arrangements that nonetheless show the power of Jason’s vocals, especially when paired with assists from Jennie & the Pine-Tops members.  ‘Rain’ felt like Molina shrugging off the past, accepting his present – burdens and all – and scolding himself for getting down while urging himself to continue on in the same breath.  This doesn’t always make for the most powerful lyrical statements, and Jason is apt to fall back on ooh-ooh-ooh harmonizings throughout the album, but in all cases he seems comfortable in his own skin, laid back pluckings on the guitar or the most subtle instrumental swells, the disc’s production sounding very Albini-like: very warm and immediate but loose, allowing room for things to heave and grow.

Naming highlights on the disc only justifies how solid of an album it is: at seven tracks, rattling off the better moments means naming the majority of the songs – and some of these are amongst the best of the S:O catalogue, like the building ‘Blue Factory Flame’ and the powerful closer ‘Blue Chicago Moon.’