Roots ?
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16 Horsepower - Secret South (Glitterhouse) Here comes the flamboyant new offering from David Eugene Edwards's troops, as ever replete with acoustic violence, heart-wrenching wails, faulknerian curses, wild banjos and slide guitars. Their trademark arrangements are still there and we certainly wouldn't complain about that, for they have managed, through Sackcloth 'n' Ashes and Low Estate, to forge a very distinctive style, somewhere between Gun Club and Nick Cave, grassroots country and explosive rock. Brilliant tracks come galloping one after the other, Clogger, Cinder Alley, Silver Saddle et Splinters being amazingly powerful. However, for one ballad ('Cept You) Edwards temporarily departs from his tales of extraordinary madness and mortal sin for an almost serene love declaration. 16 Horsepower live in a timeless world, haunted by Jeffrey Lee Pierce's ghost and Cormack McCarthy's and Flannery O'Connor's characters. Wise blood indeed... Marie Lecocq |
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