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Album Details

• Artist: Molasses
• Album: A Slow Messe
• Label: Fancy / Alien8
• Year of Release: 2003
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-05-08

Molasses is basically the vehicle for Scott Chernoff's songwriting. A Slow Messe marks Molasses third album for Scott's Fancy label. While the first two albums where adventurous, A Slow Messe is a huge project spanning two discs. As with most groups that are affiliated with Godspeed You! Black Emperor Molasses is a collective pulling from groups like Willard Grant Conspiracy, Come, Hrsta, Empty House, and Godspeed amongst many others. You will be greeted with none less than 26 songs, 13 lyrical and 13 instrumental. Some of the shorter tracks are less than a minute and are more or less just for mood setting before launching into some of the other tracks. Chernoff proves to be an excellent songwriter with tracks like "Insomnia". Songs can get noisy with feedback or be almost nonexistent. A favorite is "Delirium Rag" which starts out disc two and clocks in at a mere 12 minutes in length. It is one of the vocal tracks but Scott sounds his best here. Molasses is more rootsy than a lot of Alien8's other projects. As with most Fancy/Alien8 releases the package is of utmost importance. Each disc comes in a separate envelope and an accompanying book of lyrics and pictures. A Slow Messe is a dramatic album and Molasses is probably one of the only collectives that could have possibly delivered it. And as with most of this group's material, it may take a couple of listens to fully appreciate where they are coming from.

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