David Eugene Edwards is back! Two years after his wonderful album Consider the Birds, Woven Hand's undisputed leader delivers Mosaic, with a luxuriant sleeve. It is absolutely consistent with his previous work. All the ingredients for the band's recipe are there: tortured songs, a religious country-folk atmosphere, haunted lyrics yearning for some redemption - which, we hope, will never come -, a medieval, gothic twist, and the banjo, fiddle, tambourine and pipes feature alongside the traditional messy gear of rock music. In a nutshell, all the elements of a great album are there.

And yet, strangely, they just don't quite gel, as if a great cast was playing a clumsy scenario. Mosaic is definitely not a bad album; indeed, Wintershaker, Swedish Purse, or Dirty Blue are great songs, but it just doesn't make you shiver like the last two albums did. It's hard to say what went wrong, but for some reason, Mosaic is not quite as good as Woven Hand's previous work, and this impression lasts even after listening to it a few times. You really couldn't say that he made a mistake, let's just call this a little slump. On the other hand, after a record like Consider the Birds, it is absolutely forgivable…

3 stars (out of 5)