Woven Hand
The Threshingfloor

The Shaman is back. Let the Ceremony begin:

dust in the eyes, hands high to the sky

Let's start with an observation: some combinations (country-folk and dark-wave, just to be clear) are not that obvious, even though today they seem natural, and David Eugene Edwards, since the unforgettable times of 16 Horsepower, is someone who has made this kind of crossover great.

Always balancing between American tradition and obsessions inherited directly from a certain post-punk from across the channel (Joy Division first and foremost), Edwards worthily collects what was Jim Morrison's intuition, then flows into the vein that has seen illustrious names of more or less recent rock thrive in its current, from cursed poets like Nick Cave and late Michael Gira, to finally embrace the sounds of bands like The Cult and even the champions of desert dark-rock Fields of Nephilim. He, Our Man, does not forget that rock is always born from pain, and more precisely from the desperate blues of black people, by day slaves in the cotton fields, by night harsh singers giving vent to their afflictions.

Having archived the electrifying experience with the mother band, for some years now Edwards has loved moving under the guise of Wovenhand, giving us gems of rock we thought were on the verge of extinction: from the eponymous album of 2002 to the present "The Threshingfloor," the latest album dated 2010, the shaman Edwards becomes the author of amazing music, that smells of desert, that is cloaked in the colors of the night. With a warm and vibrant vocal timbre, a magnetism and charisma worthy of the greatest in rock, a hallucinatory poetic that, despite the professed Christian belief, recalls the fanaticism of the preacher, the far-sightedness of the Native American, the hallucinations of the most visionary Morrison, Edwards is an invincible cowboy chasing his ghosts. And we do not mind imagining him as the ideal appearance, alongside a memorable Johnny Depp, in that cinematic masterpiece of Jim Jarmusch called "Dead Man."

A western film shot in black and white, dreamlike, poetic, pervaded by Lynchian obsessions, haunted by demonic presences and psychedelic visions, it is the imaginary that seems to recall the music of the Wovenhand project. Leaving behind the electric impetuosity of the good predecessor "Ten Stones," the group creates this superb "The Threshingfloor," which masterfully recovers the more damnably singer-songwriter vein of its author, who does not, however, fail to pay tribute to the mechanical influences of a certain dark-wave which he has been able to draw from since the beginning of his career, and a lysergic breath that gives magic to his music in every fold.

In the more lively moments (the frenetic title track) as in the more somber twilight passages (the crushing "Singing Grass"), Edwards seems to immerse himself in an apocalyptic mood that does not distance him much from a certain strange form of neo-folk, which, starting from the monumental "Black Ships Ate the Sky" by Current 93, has been able to take root and supernaturally contaminate a wide array of wandering singer-songwriters in this disheartening third millennium. And it is no coincidence that the album sees its birth right in the Absinthe Studios of that Robert Ferbrache, already a collaborator in the glorious times of 16 Horsepower, but better remembered as the backbone of the formidable Blood Axis of Michael Moynihan.

Neo-folk, blues, singer-songwriting, southern rock thus find an (un)believable intersection in Edwards' visionary mind, in whose music, besides himself, we find forty years of great rock culture (and it is not a coincidence either that an illustrious entity of the eighties like New Order is celebrated with the upheaval of "Truth").

Arpeggios that know of gentle rides along the frontier, of rivers to ford for one's salvation, of rites capable of resurrecting the dead. Ethnic percussions, mantric chants that "esoterize" a rock in its basic form (guitar, voice, bass, and drums), but effective in every desolate step: an "utterly screwed" music that enchants as it passes, simple and direct like the track of a train steaming through the desert, inspired like the song of a wanderer roaming aimlessly through America's infinite lands, between wheat fields and the watchful eye of God. A journey to be accomplished from sunset to dawn, guided by Edwards' dramatic singing and the mournful notes of his guitar; a nightmare in which guilt and redemption restlessly copulate, and which finds its climax in the nighttime phrasing, for the occasion electro-acoustic, of the obscure "Behind Your Breath"; a path that dares to plunge into the desert electronics of the brief interlude "Wheatstraw" and finds a relaxing escape in the final "Denver City", a jaunty rock'n'roll with pseudo-glam moods (???), which directly recall the phantasmagoric Bolan of T-Rex.

The twelve pieces, although repetitive, manage to charm thanks to their hypnotic progression, a rituality sought after and strongly desired by the charismatic singer, who evidently knows the commandments of rock well and is able to skillfully lay them out in a sort of rosary of darkness traversed by bones and skulls. But if a flaw must be found, it is that the pieces end too quickly, leaving a damnably heavy emptiness to bear, when instead each could have lasted for a quarter of an hour and beyond. But for those fleeing in this increasingly futile and frenetic life, the abundant three-quarters of an hour of "The Threshingfloor" provide the ideal window to look out on a mythical and alluring world full of mysticism, archaic flavors and biblical conflicts.

For all the orphans of "The First Born is Dead." Have a good resurrection.