Wovenhand, Star Treatment
★★★★☆
Download: Come Brave; The Hired Hand; All Your Waves; Golden Blossom
On Star Treatment, Wovenhand prime mover David Eugene Edwards locates the shared space between Native American and Middle Eastern modes, with an exciting exploration of spirituality and music that draws Montana close to Mesopotamia. It’s a music parched in desert sun, lost in forest gloom, abandoned on endless prairies: land and elements dominate the imagery which Edwards declaims with stern, religiose intensity, against arrangements ranging from the Gun Club-style gothic rockabilly of “The Hired Hand” to the abstract avalanche of drums and guitars harking, in “Swaying Reed”, to the Tigris. Elsewhere, the dense, droning weave of guitars in “Crook And Flail” and “Golden Blossom” recalls The Byrds, Popol Vuh and Tuareg desert-blues. At its best, it’s quite thrilling: the galloping drums and strident guitar clangour of “Come Brave” perfectly evokes its Indian imagery, while “All Your Waves” develops a mysterious, tsunami-like power all its own. Majestic stuff.