review by: Larissa Parson

The first album I thought of when I heard this disc was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ The Firstborn is Dead. Hardly surprising, as Cave is one the of the artists frontman David Eugene Edwards lists as an influence. Edwards shares Cave’s love of the hidden backroads of America, where strange things happen, usually involving Jesus, death, and love. For Edwards, the grandson of a traveling Nazarene preacher, this is genetic. It is clear that Edwards is coming at many of the same traditions as Cave from an angle slightly skewed.

Much like one of Edwards’ other named influences, Johnny Cash, Sixteen Horsepower seem to be favoring reinterpreting the music of others to writing new music these days, hence the title Folklore. Four of the ten tracks are original, the rest are covers - among the many threads woven the fabric of the album are Hank Williams, the Carter Family, Nina Simone and traditional Hungarian and Tuvan songs. And yet the album as a whole is nearly seamless, a continuous mourning for something lost among the twisted roots of aging trees in the godless wilderness.

What makes this album great is not the vitriolic intensity of the band’s earlier work (but this may be due to the many changes in line-up the band has seen over the years), but the threat of violence lying just under the surface of an otherwise fairly quiet, dark album. “Hutterite Mile,” the opening track, makes clear from the start that this is not going to be a loud album, building from a simple guitar line to interventions by violins against the plaintive declarations of Edwards’ voice. The refrain, “it is no mystery I know my way from here,” suggests that Edwards is well aware that he’s deviating from his former path.

There are two exceptions to the biblical gloom - a version of the Carter Family’s “Single Girl,” which might almost be thought of as cheerful, if it were not just a bit off center, and the album’s closer, “La Roche Parasol,” which resembles the sound of a nightmare taking place at a street festival in Paris, where accordions mock passers-by.

I would rank “Horse-Head Fiddle,” based on Tuvan throat-singing, as one of the eeriest, most beautiful tracks on the album - Edwards’ vocals are a bracing contrast to the harmonium, flute and miscellaneous moans backing him. “Sinnerman” follows this track, and while I must admit I prefer Nina Simone’s version, what Edwards does with it is worth a listen. Put on this album when you’re in a melancholy mood, open a bottle of whisky, and bask in the southern Goth feel of the album. (8.5/10)