The preacher now looks the fowl in the feathers. "Consider the birds" is the title of the third Woven Hand album. The project in which Sixteen Horsepower man David Eugene Edwards grubs in all kinds of souls all by himself, looking for shallowness. Principally in his own soul of course. "At the end of my thought I twist and turn/Myself a knot." The adjuratory opener "Sparrow falls" already points the road downwards. On the flapping wings of the birds.

In contrast with his main band, in which the intensity increases yet the arrangements seem to become ever sparser, Edwards is looking for a broader base with Woven Hand. Other timbres and eclectic rhythms lead to wan coloured arrangements anyhow. Whereas 16HP recently traced the indigenous American tradition, here also added Arabic, Eastern-European and unobtrusive medieval influences emerge, which Edwards likes to employ as footnotes in his ballads.

Edwards even ventures a cautious step in the modern world of sounds. But thanks to the unquestionable earthiness of the music he never risks the characteristic almost sacral intensity. Even when, like in "To make a ring", abstruse background noises remind you of epic post-rock, they turn out to be played by hand. With bleeding fingers presumably. Ominous percussion, a catch in the voice, gasping for breath, sawing violins - and Edwards enthroned in the middle, to herald the Last Judgement: "Judgement is not avoided by your unbelief."

In the sparse "Chest of drawers" a lonesome acoustic guitar looses itself to Edwards' melancholy. In "The speaking hands" a thunderstorm builds up to a wandering piano. In "Down in yon forest" the first flashes of lightning. However not until "Tin finger" does the original sin discharge. "All our words rhyme with guilt tonight." The banjo wavers and the guitar is cross. When he's at the end of his tether Edwards surrenders to his creator. "I feel nothing/I hear no voice." Amen.