To love is a laborious task. It is harsh and volatile but inherently worth suffering for. Jason Molina captured this complex medley of emotions on the The Lioness, the fifth album under the Songs: Ohia project. His penmanship is second to none in the landscape of alt-folk and alt-country and it certainly shows on this record. This album is an important stepping stone towards the sound of his seminal work, The Magnolia Electric Co. The sound of The Lioness is somewhere between the sparse twangs of 2002's Didn't it Rain to the full-bodied operas of Magnolia. Calling Molina a wife guy is entirely fair based off of this record. The box set of 'Love & Work: The Lioness Sessions' even contains an abundance of love letters and poems to and from his beloved. Despite this, The Lioness is not simply a memoir of the adulation he has for her, but a much deeper exploration of his love alongside the associated heartache and woes. The album turns 25 this year, yet remains one of the most pivotal works in a stellar discography.

Molina's laboured delivery is the perfect vessel for his maudlin lyricism. Each verse is tantalizingly soft, often building into a fervent crescendo where Molina unlocks his stronger, raspier vocals. This record is a treatise on love and he certainly provides the requisite passion in his performances. To keep the Songs: Ohia sound evolving, Molina recruited Scottish indie-band Arab Strap to blend the project's existing indie-country sensibilities with an emergent slowcore sound and use the pedal-steel for a vibrato to match the emotional resonance of his words.

Molina puts the minutiae of romance under the microscope on "Tigress". It is a beautiful mural of every glance and stolen look that forms the very basis of desire itself. Chronicling the frustrating ambiguity during the infancy of a relationship, Molina ramps up to an impassioned ultimatum to be in all in or not together at all since the pain of not knowing if it's real is too immense. This song has a different flavor of anxiety than the rest of the record, much like the infancy of a relationship is without the serious considerations of love.

The "Love and Work" reissue not only reveals some hidden gems and demos, but also a deeper look into the heart and soul of Molina. Even the title is telling - he approached his music with the same work ethic that he did his steelworker jobs in his hometown of Lorain, Ohio. He dose not consider love to be work, but rather aims to explore the symbiotic relationship between the two and how one splits their dedication amongst them. There is a delicate balance between the fulfillment we find in these two facets of our lives, and it's hard to maintain that.

The titular track "Lioness" is a ballad of trepidation depicting love as a leap of faith. Lyrics like "Wanna feel my heart break // If it must break // In your jaws" show the primal desire we have to make that leap or die trying. It is a solemn soliloquy, both heartbreaking and hopeful. Molina bemoans the obstacles his love faces in but accepts perishing trying to overcome them. The refrain of "I will swim to you" is heart-wrenchingly tragic; each utterance is a tidal wave crashing into him and holding him back from his true love on the other side while also strengthening his resolve to make it to her.

"Nervous Bride" exists in the same bucket as "The Dark Don't Hide It" in the Molinaverse - a seemingly braggadocious song that actually chips away at the male facade. "The women are dressed up // and they are up to no good" is a chauvinistic saying that can be heard at a bachelor party, but as the song goes on it reveals that it is papering over the insecurities of the groom himself. "And I lay down tonight as nervous as a bride // she’s not nervous but she tries" reveals that he's actually the one with doubts, and she has to be strong for the both of them.

The "Love and Work" release describes this as a make-out album and while that assessment may be untrue for the rest of the record, it certainly holds for "Coxcomb Red". The sultry admissions of longing against the deliberate, moody minor chords makes it one of the most sensual Songs: Ohia song out there. Lyrics like "And I wanted that heat so bad \ I could taste the fire on your breath" allude to the age-old dichotomy of lust disguised as love and love disguised as lust.

Other figureheads of alt-country-indie-rock scene like Will Oldham and David Berman have penned transcendent love songs as well, but none have crafted an entire project on the very emotion itself quite like Molina has on The Lioness. It is vulnerable, powerful and poignant like nothing else that came before it. He paints a vivid picture of the excruciating trials and tribulations we have to endure to love, but also the way love makes them worth enduring at all. Molina is one of the great American poets of our time and he has crafted another masterpiece with this record.