Jean-Yves Tola, French bassist for Denver's Sixteen Horsepower, has described his band as putting "music to the images of America." If you happen to live - mentally or physically - in the depths of hardscrabble, gothic Appalachia, Tola's description is uncommonly perceptive. Not in recent memory has a "rock" band (and one with "alternative" roots, no less) so accurately captured the dark, eerie passion that has festered for centuries in the rugged Appalachian foothills.

Driven by David Eugene Edwards' warbled wail and the droning minor-key dissonance of an arsenal of instruments (including a vintage bandoneon, banjo and hurdy-gurdy), the band's new disc is even more challenging than their 1995 Sackcloth 'n' Ashes. Even with the addition of utility player Jeffrey Paul Norlander, tunes such as the title track and "Brimstone Rock" wind up less dense and cluttered. But the result is even more haunting, akin to getting spooked in the woods on a pitch-black night. Respites from the ordeal, like the gentle, acoustic-based "The Denver Grab" and "Golden Rope," are few and far between.

Whether or not you catch Edwards' numerous biblical references, it's clear that Sixteen Horsepower has tapped into some of life's more powerful forces. The fatalistic, fire-and-brimstone attitude of "For Heaven's Sake" and "Sac of Religion" are fueled as much by the pulsing, overdriven slide guitars as by lines like "I will not live and die - no not by the sword/I am weak, without the joy of the Lord." "Black Lung", an odd but catchy, archaic-effect banjo/fiddle reel, may only peripherally refer to the terminal affliction that haunts coal miners, but the soundtrack will surely put you on the set of an old coal camp.

This is not easy-listening fluff. Like the film Matewan, Low Estate is both passionate and very disconcerting, with an undercurrent of hostility. Who knows how and where Edwards & Co. conjured their demons, but they're playing with a serious deck of cards.