Songs of the locust, fevered, righteous, blessed and damned. Old Testament biblical in their leathered sense of wound and pledge. Drawing deep from that dark and deep welll of brackish backwoods song and velvet mountain glower. American folkloric grief and grieving, sin and salve. Ache and smoulder.

Yes, as 16 Horsepower, core members David Eugene Edwards, Jean-Yves Tola and Pascal Humbert have long possessed a wrought and ravaged sense of self and soul. Appalachian mourning, howling moan, mesmeric yowl. Eyes black as coal in hollowed sockets that glint and glimmer – o how beauteous the desolation. And all roads now have led to this. A tower of nekkid, stripped-back and stretched-out hurdy-gurdy song. A skeletal dance of fevered awn. Covers and traditional songs mixed with new works of similar burning ire. Very latterday Nick Cave. A coming to terms and a coming of age. Following on from Edwards' recently released solo debut, 'Woven Hand' (a dense and smouldering thing, also on Glitterhouse), this is pure, drenched 16hp. A work of banjo pluck and sonorous drone. A mighty thing. Thirty-two minutes long and prefect at that. One of the albums of the year.