Woven Hand
Star Treatment

LA RECENSIONE

Every two years, David Eugene Edwards returns with punctuality. The shamanic messiah of the American expanses has produced some of the most seminal, heartfelt, and inspired works of the "dark country" of the last 15 years. And he's done it again.

"Star Treatment" marks the ninth studio album and represents the continuum of the previous "Refractory Obdurate." Already on that record, the metallic verve emerged strongly, at times sweeping away the alt-country that nurtured it, in favor of a desert and lysergic hard rock that has few equals on the world stage. In ST, the hard and pure drive emerges with even greater force and manifests itself from the very first moments of "Come Brave", a messianic ride of notable epic strength. Again: although the coordinates of the Wovenhand project seem to settle on a predominance of guitar sounds, it's always extremely complex to "label" someone like Edwards and his music. What is not lost is the evocative, almost sermonic, and declamatory charge of his music, well highlighted by the challenging "Swaying Reed" and its cacophonous reverberations, or the long "All your Waves" with its apocalyptic and similar noise/stoner finale.

Solitude, creation, personal vision of Christianity, desert feeling, ancestral sounds, never banal songwriting. The classic elements marked by Wovenhand are present this time as well but, as said, channeled into a much more furious mood than in the past. Only in a few brief moments does the sky clear and make way for a gem like "Go Ye light", without ever forgetting a certain abrasive psychedelia that manifests here and there, finding fertile ground in the dark and disorienting scenarios of "Crook and Flail".

Every time Edwards comes up with the new chapter of this creation of his, one is left bewildered by his extraordinary ability to remain always at a stylistic and qualitative level that has few equals in similar environments and beyond. Each of his records must be savored in all its minimal inflections and variations, discovering each time new influences and small details that seemed to have escaped on a first listen. With works signed Wovenhand, a detailed analysis won't do, comments and reviews are of little use and could never convey the idea of one of the most peculiar, multifaceted, and indefinable realities in overseas music.

A guarantee.