May 04 - Porto, PT @ Hard Club May 05 - Lisbon, PT @ RCA Club May 06 - Madrid, ES @ Kristonfest May 09 - Bologna, IT @ Bronson May 12 - Thessaloniki, GR @ Fix Factory of Sound May 13 - Athens, GR @ Fuzz Club May 21 - Milan, IT @ Circolo Magnolia Segrate May 23 - Liege, BE @ Reflektor May 24 - Groningen, NL @ Oosterpoort May 25 - Haarlem, NL @ Patronaat May 26 - Sint Niklass, BE @ De Casino May 27 - Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vredenburg
Download: Come Brave; The Hired Hand; All Your Waves; Golden Blossom
On Star Treatment, Wovenhand prime mover David Eugene Edwards locates the shared space between Native American and Middle Eastern modes, with an exciting exploration of spirituality and music that draws Montana close to Mesopotamia. It’s a music parched in desert sun, lost in forest gloom, abandoned on endless prairies: land and elements dominate the imagery which Edwards declaims with stern, religiose intensity, against arrangements ranging from the Gun Club-style gothic rockabilly of “The Hired Hand” to the abstract avalanche of drums and guitars harking, in “Swaying Reed”, to the Tigris. Elsewhere, the dense, droning weave of guitars in “Crook And Flail” and “Golden Blossom” recalls The Byrds, Popol Vuh and Tuareg desert-blues. At its best, it’s quite thrilling: the galloping drums and strident guitar clangour of “Come Brave” perfectly evokes its Indian imagery, while “All Your Waves” develops a mysterious, tsunami-like power all its own. Majestic stuff.
David Eugene Edwards of Wovenhand talked to Music & Riots for their latest issue - check it out HERE, and check out their review of "Star Treatment" on page 130.
Long-time devotees may still favour the sparse, acoustic fervour of earlier Wovenhand records, but it’s undeniable that David Eugene Edwards’ band have benefited hugely from becoming noisier and more muscular in recent times. 2014’s Refractory Obdurate was almost universally acclaimed and further cemented the strange but oddly natural relationship Edwards’ music has with the metal underground. Superficially, Star Treatment is simply more of the same sublimely stormy and electrified neo-folk. No less compelling than anything else its primary composer has done, it feels more like a consolidation of the current Wovenhand lineup’s intuitive chemistry than an attempt to expand their sound, and yet despite lacking any one definitive money shot to rival the mid-song ascension of the previous album’s Corsicana Clip, there are golden moments in abundance.
The opening Come Brave is a scabrous call-to- arms, its wall of clanging guitars exuding confrontational vehemence and David Eugene Edwards’ sonorous cries piercing through the squall like a siren in a thunderstorm. It also conjures more of that unsettling but obscenely exciting wildness that this more rock-driven incarnation of the band have steadily learned to harness. The languorousSwaying Reed is almost doom in delivery, but the untamed resonance of those guitars is more redolent of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s feedback experiment Arc and there is something deliciously Swans-like about the sheer power behind each transient crescendo. Mid-album epic All Your Waves is even more compelling; a sustained and unnerving, Nephilim-tinged mirage, its blistering evocation of windswept plains and profound revelations could have been comically overwrought in less sincere hands, but Edwards’ utmost conviction ensures that the drama is very real and his comrades’ ensemble performance is nothing short of magical. More succinct material like the gothic rock rumble of Crook And Flail andGo Ye Light’s menacing post-punk thud may not quite hit the same heights of disorientating efficacy, but they each exhibit just enough of Wovenhand’s glowering soul to earn their place. It may be bigger, bolder and louder these days but there are no discernible fissures in Edwards’ holy vision and his band of brothers march on with heads held high.
