Search - Woven Hand :: Mosaic

Best album I've heard in a long time.

Vinessa L. Young | 09/20/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have been running music stores for 11 years, so you know that I am very picky. This guy is brilliant. He has incorporated world music with melodic vocals that are just haunting. the images that he portrays in his songs with his obvious religious background in superb. There is nobody out there like this. if you like folk music, dark sounding gospel or just plain world music, this is for you. he uses many different instruments and as stated, his vocals are indescribably good."

An expansive and minor key world of darkness and drama, lost

Aquarius Records | San Francisco | 09/17/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have long been huge a fan of Mr. David Eugene Edwards, formerly of Southern Gothic swamp folk outfit 16 Horsepower, currently performing as Woven Hand, a band that takes the swampy folk of 16HP somewhere even darker, a world of imminent damnation, and dreams of glorious salvation. The music of Woven Hand is a dark and brooding, fire and brimstone, apocalyptic doom folk, with Edwards testifying like his life depended on it. And maybe it does. Edwards makes no bones about being a Christian, and the music of Woven hand plays like the Old Testament come to life.

Damnation and suffering, a cold cruel world, the only hope of life everlasting is to somehow weather the harsh and hellish, to bow down and be lifted up.



And the thing is you don't necessarily have to be religious to be terrified of death and suffering, or eternal torture, and even the staunchest atheist might think twice if offered a chance at eternal life, and eternal happiness. Typically, the word of God, the usual messages from on high, repent or die, do unto others, are hugely heavy handed, granted, they are meant to be as they do concern your eternal life, but when delivered in the context of the Woven Hand, some of us find our agnostic selves chilled to the bone, the fear of God, -some- God anyway, gets us quaking in our boots.



But it's more about the delivery than the message for us, and from a purely musical approach Woven Hand's music is gloriously grim, an expansive and minor key world of darkness and drama, lost souls and true love, simple strummed guitars, dramatic understated strings, fiddles and wheezing accordions, haunting arrangements, bizarre percussion, strange FX and incredibly intense ambience, and of course Edwards' gorgeously affecting croon: dramatic, intense, emotional, but so obviously troubled, conflicted, hopeful too, yet streaked with a dark despair.

So although Woven Hand's chillingly morose gothic twang is perfect on its own, when tangled up with Edwards' moody tales of punishment and salvation, of love and death, it takes on even more emotional weight.



And compared to the first Woven Hand record, Edwards seems to slowly be moving away from the sound of 16 Horespower, the first Woven Hand could have been another 16HP record, but such is the way with records like that, a 'solo' record from the band member who wrote most of the music for the band he just left. But each record has been getting darker, more personal, disturbingly so, but at the same time, more epic, more cinematic, and more and more beautiful."

Brilliant

D | 11/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is absolutely gorgeous, and some of the best music I've heard in a long time. I also think this is Mr. Edwards' finest album yet. It's not different in style from his past works, just better. For me it's the first complete Woven Hand album, the first one without a single dull track. I've been a fan since 16 Horsepower, and I'm constantly impressed that he continues to deliver great music album after album, but he's outdone himself this time. I highly recommend this to anyone who has enjoyed the music of 16 HP or Woven Hand."