Rustic trio 16 Horsepower evokes another time and place from the first martial drumbeat and twangy slide guitar roll of "I Seen What I Saw," the lead cut off the group's debut album. Then comes David Eugene Edwards' raw howl - a sluggish, torn and frayed warble which closely resembles that of the Gun Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce, both possessing the strained, aggressive voice of a demon-tortured man. But as rich and mood-defining as Edwards' vocals are, 16 Horsepower's dense atmosphere is equally defined by his group's rootsy instrumentation (some of which Edwards hand-crafts) and haunting lyrics, which weave religion-soaked, Flannery O'Connor-esque tales of the blackness of sin before a ghost town-ish backdrop. `Every man's evil, a ghost town-ish backdrop. "Every man's evil, yes/Every man's a liar/I'm ashamed with a wicked tongue/Singing in the black soul choir," Edwards moans on the banjo-driven "Black Soul Choir." (On stage, the trio even dons 19th century garb, even further disassociating its music from our technology-obsessed society.) The strongest songs are those where Edwards really works his banjo and accordion into the songs' mood; on "Ruthie Lingle" for example, his banjo picking does a black jig with the whiny strokes of a fiddle, while the moaning tones of his accordion on "Harm's Way" are a far cry from the cheery honks of a French caféentertainer. Also rev up your horse 'n' buggy to "Black Bush", "Prison Shoe Romp" and the slide guitar-infused "Strong Man."