Let's begin at the end, with the cover of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" that closes Magnolia Electric Co.'s Hard to Love a Man EP. Mike "Slo-Mo" Brenner's always elegant guitar work makes it clear that the song is probably a barnstormer live, probably saved for the first encore so that the band can cut loose on its signature three-part riff. On CD, though, it sounds drained of blood: Jason Molina and co. re-create it nearly note for note, down to the end-of-song shout-out "Draw blood!" What's the point, then? It's certainly not Molina's earnest vocal delivery, which foregoes the original satirical edge for a dull sincerity. "Little old lady got mutilated late last night"-- that's so sad. Plus, his howls are weak.
Even the Kidz Bop Kids' cover of "Werewolves of London" has more bite than this one, but Magnolia Electric Co.'s version is at the very least somewhat instructive: Falling beyond the band's range, the track highlights their weaknesses as surely as it reflects their strengths on this EP. The three new songs here are prime Co.-- slow, subtle, bluesy, and bleary, but also unsettled, as if they're still developing and mutating even as you listen. Produced by Paul Mahern, these songs move glacially, but with much more confident purpose than "Werewolves", even if their ultimate ends are unclear at their beginnings. "Bowery" stumbles down a dark alley, tripping on Molina's ruminative regrets: The slow beat and decorous piano comprise a ponderous rhythm section against which Molina sounds determinedly doomed. Mike Kapinus's organ thrums through "Doing Something Wrong" and "31 Seasons in the Minor Leagues", sadsack laments about agony and defeat: "You ain't gonna win the game," Molina sings on the latter, "Hell, kid, you don't even know the coach's name."
These three songs lead us back to the title track, which kicks off the EP. The first single from this year's album What Comes After the Blues, the depressive "Hard to Love a Man" finds Molina singing presumably about himself in second person: "It was hard to love a man like you/good-bye was half the words you knew." The song, like the man, retreats into itself, the elegant blending of pinprick guitars, drums, and truly alien pedal steel creating a new, closed-off world within the song. Molina's too concerned with death (which often lends easy gravity, but here resounds more strongly for being unspoken) to put across the animated "Werewolves of London", but he makes "Hard to Love a Man" sound like a cross-country funeral parade. Maybe he should have tried "Searching for a Heart".
