Review Summary: ...the whole city was stirred and asked, 'Who is this?'
Fifteen years or so ago, I watched a documentary called "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus". It focused on a journeyman musician travelling around the South, talking to locals, and checking out various acts. This little curiosity of a movie was fairly poor, focusing on a romanticized mythology of life in the South while ignoring what I expect can also be a fairly normal existence. You'd swear everyone in Mississippi drives a rusting muscle car with an idiosyncratic novelty relic in the trunk. One thing did read as genuine though - the moments spent with David Eugene Edwards, the force behind Wovenhand.
Edwards got to perform a track or two, and his intensity was written into every frame. I imagine that if he ever took a selfie, it would come out as a tintype. It is this old world fervour that we recognise in Wovenhand (and previous band 16 horsepower), and faith is the fuel of the project. I'm not a spiritual man, but I find myself admiring the sincerity of Edwards' belief. There's no sugarcoating here, Edwards believes in the God of convenants - a God that demands absolute submission. To his credit, Edwards does not attempt to interpret this away. This latest release reads like a proclamation, rather than the gothic confessionals of the earlier Wovenhand records.
According to the Bandcamp blurb, this is the first Wovenhand record which is a complete collaboration (Chuck French of Planes Mistaken For Stars is the co-writer). Also, this album has been 4 years in the making. One expects an album which has been fussed over for such a considerable time (partly a product of the pandemic) to feel a little overworked, but it definitely has retained energy. Edwards continues to impress as a singer. He has always been distinctive, possessing a strong drawl that can be switched up to a howl in a threshing gale, then back to an ominous close inflection. Wovenhand vocal lines can drift into a space that is close to spoken word, and even when this is the case Edwards imbues each line with musicality. "Silver Sash" as a whole leans on this quite heavily. I do feel sometimes there is more of a simple rhythmic pattern to this particular album, and all the elements must serve this. The project uses stylistic changes to provide variety, sometimes with a desert western approach on a song like "Duat hawk", or an almost post rock canvas for opener "Tempel Timber". "Dead dead beat" even somewhat finds a spiritual link between an industrial pulse and the spare wildness of Joy Division's "Interzone".
Wearing these different skins, I still feel like the record rarely breaks away from a sort of meditative stomp. This density and Edwards reeling off of lines with a specific focused cadence creates a grand atmosphere, but I find myself missing some of the more delicate aspects of their sound. "The Lash" finds some of that with filigreed guitar work and vocals that sound like the wind in an abandoned monastery. I've always enjoyed the unexpected but elastic resolutions found in their more folk based sound, coupled with almost lacy guitar. "8 of 9" contains some guitar picking that reminds me of water falling on zinc, and it's gorgeous - I miss those interludes and that innate Wovenhand sense of yore. The unified power of this record can wear down a listener looking for a bit more melody and lilt. However, if you're primed for a majestic, hypnotic journey, "Silver Sash" is your palanquin over the palm leaves.
