Magnolia Electric Co. formed when Jason Molina's alt country / folk / rock band Songs:Ohia changed both their direction and their name, adding a new electric muscle to their sound. Molina's story is a tragic one, alcoholism cutting his life short at the age of 39, something he appears to foretell on an earlier Magnolia song, the haunting 'North Star' ("I heard the North Star saying, 'kid you're so lost even I can't bring you home"). Josephine was their last album before Molina's death and is a beautiful, painful record with the title character appearing in 3 songs as a forlorn shadow, a lost love of the singer, never coming back. The album loses a little bite in the back half but the opening 6 tracks are as good as anything I've ever listened to.