Molasses

Molasses is a super-gathering of musical talent whose nucleus is within the fine city of Montreal, including members of Set Fire To Flames, GY!BE, Shalabi Effect as well as outsiders Empty House. For their third release, a super deluxe packaged double CD set, the ultra-low-cruising melodic pop collective intermingle a grand feeling of peace with small short-film-like moments of self-conscious-like panic and angst drones. The first disc includes some beautiful acoustic guitar patterned ballads that sound like early Rogers Waters-meets-Low style. The second disc, which sports more personality, also tends to get a little more adventurous — dealing more with field recordings, ambiance, uplifting and slightly hallucinogenic folk ballads reminiscent of McCartney's "Mull Of Kintyre" and Neutral Milk Hotel. The drones become more introspective, a waltz of buzz saws, incestuous whales and the various environmental sounds turn into Eastern-type grooves. The album title, an anagram on the band's name explains cleverly the fabric of the band's sound and spirit — both religious and hymnal and slow like molasses. The church references in the sound and packaging art also tie in with the idea of the group being a collective — and it is a collective of people that build something together with a single goal in mind, like in the days of old when a town would get together to build a church — and in this case, it is a record of music. And the vibe of these discs somehow reflect brilliance from dark, brooding and delicate music in the shadows — it is as if this is a slow motion linear document of twilight into late night.