After eight years and two albums, Colorado-based goth blues band hit the motherlode. Sometimes perseverance and finely wrought posturing can make all the difference. David Eugene Edwards and his gloom-laden desperados were freed from a going-nowhere major label deal in last year´s A&M shutdown. This terrific album - Eugene´s diseased, heavily treated scowl exploring the death valley blues, mountain gospel and the barbed nether lands of country noir - suggests the departure was a fortuitous escape.

Though the chilled, sparse instrumentation often recalls management stablemates The Dirty Three and songs peopled with crushed serpents, mournful widows, bloody vendettas and benighted lost spirits explore early Nick Cave territory, 16 Horsepower are no cheap imitators.

Initially, his tremulous grandstanding may seem forced but Edwards´ sense of drama is acute, and a ripe sense of tension and emotional desperation holds firm throughout this savage but scintillating journey.

**** (out of 5)