Album: Magnolia Electric Co, Josephine, (Secretly Canadian)

Said it before but it's worth repeating: Jason Molina is one of the great unsung heroes of authentic American music.

Three years since his band Magnolia Electric Co's last record, this is a concept album billed as "an honest-to-God effort to pay tribute" to the band's bass player, Evan Farrell, who died in a fire in 2007. It's a collection of hauntingly beautiful country-folk songs, as sad and disconsolate as only Molina can be – imagine Neil Young's Tonight's the Night with with desperation replacing anger.