Mercy

When someone sometime would hit upon the idea to make music that would give even the crew of the local ghost train the holy chills, well, he could drop the idea straightaway. It's already been done. For David Eugene Edwards, also after the demise of 16 Horsepower, manages to achieve both: glory and goose-pimples. Not for nothing does he swear in his audience with “Hallelujah” during a song called “Winter Shaker.”

Naturally, also with Woven Hand, salvation of the soul isn't free of charge. Edwards puts spiritual hard labour before deliverance. "This fear is only the beginning", he promises in "Dirty blue," when violins cut through livid light and the cross is already lurking in semi-darkness. "There is a sorrow to be desired." Because passion and pain do belong together.

Once again Edwards digs into the dusty archives of music history with both hands. The bandoneon whistles from the last hole but one, the strings corrode in the air, and Edwards' wailing throat always succeeds in finding dark metaphors. "A burning coal of kindness/Over my head." Even when in "Slota prow - full armour" matters gain headway, Ordy Garrison's drumming sounds like the rattle of skeletons.

Once more painful redemption is the overriding theme of the 12 songs on “Mosaic.” When creaking guitars grind like millstones in “Elktooth” and in addition the organ moans and groans, you wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the guy who is sung of as “double minded man.” "Shadows long as he crawls home." You almost fear that this is more about pain than about redemption.

In-between instrumental breathers almost promise relaxation and beauty. But then once again burning bushes and flaming strings lurk. Edwards preaches and implores and speaks in tongues: "Prashnom moldich svetoven/Vashene osh miashte/Ebndevik saferen seduc/Bullvenya oshkye." Incantations, lamentations or perhaps prayers after all? Slowly the ghost train turns out to be an oppressing and narrow, doubtlessly haunted church somewhere in the wilderness. And outside the coyotes are howling.

8 (out of 10)