Close your eyes and think hard: who, at the time, burned himself on the Holy Fire of Sixteen Horsepower's Sackcloth 'n' Ashes, that frenetic, monstrously driven reproduction in sound of religious mania? And after that, who started to get tired of it at a hellish rate, when the second album 'Low Estate', turned out to be more of the same, but less maniacal, not so driven, inferior in all aspects, as if the Holy Spirit, that had undoubtedly haunted the body of David Eugene Edwards for a while, once again was catching its breath on a cloud? Yep, that was us. We spurred our horse with no name and rode towards the horizon. We're still on our way, still on the loose, and the Reverend Edwards is present again! He's doing it single-handedly this time, calls himself Woven Hand and has made a really good album.

Right away he preaches a helluva sermon in opener 'The Good Hand', words soaked in razor-sharp sadness and vitriol, direct against a girl that probably once said 'Pfff' and then walked away. Maniacs are offered a theme song in the shape of 'Blue Pail Fever', a bedtime prayer that's so ominous that Walter, our never relenting pitbull terrier, lies down in a corner, shuddering, nail-biting. Spooky shit indeed. Fortunately matters become more light-hearted after that with 'Glass Eye', and the brilliant 'Wooden Brother', which we would like to hear in a version of the demonic surfer Chris Isaak.

What we can do without is a new wave/folk-rendering of Bill Withers' 'Isn't No Sunshine'. It could have been worse thought: we are still wincing when we think of what Travis recently did on TV to Jimmy Webb's 'Wichita Lineman' and 'All the Young Dudes'. Back to the album, the solemn 'Story and Pictures', an ode to a 'White lady / growlin on a chain' makes up for everything straightaway. 'Out of sight and out of mind / if only it were so', sounds as if Rick Blaine, Bogart from 'Casablanca', whispered it into his ear personally. And from then on it's enjoyment until the end, when the fittingly titled 'Last Fist' summarizes the whole album in one single line: 'trouble and suffering in a lovely rhythm'. So, as far as we're concerned David Eugene Edwards has earned his place in heaven for the second time. There are people who don't even earn it once.