Magnolia Electric Co. released Fading Trails this year, and I picked it up a week or so ago. I liked Songs: Ohia, but the transition to Magnolia Electric has really been… well, it isn’t that there was anything wrong with Songs, but let’s just say that Magnolia Electric resonates with me more. Fading Trails is as good as or better than the other studio album, What Comes After the Blues, and will probably be one of the most frequently played albums of the next three or four months for me, unless The Wrens manage to get their next album out in that time, which I do not expect.

The record is only 9 songs and 28 minutes long, both of which surprised me when I looked them up just a second ago, because it certainly feels like an entire album to me. My two immediate favorites are the leading track Don’t Fade On Me and the number three track, Lonesome Valley, and then I find the timbre change as one recording session gives way to another a little disconcerting, but the songs in the middle and on the back half of the record are good too.

Pick it up.