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Folklore

What Billy Bob Thornton needs to do, apart from giving up country singing, is get behind another movie as scary as Sling Blade and implore David Eugene Edwards to have his trio of biblically spooky goth cowpokes, 16 Horsepower, perform the soundtrack. Besides, Edwards has already written a slew of songs Angelina Jolie's ex-main squeeze could adapt into one brilliant screenplay. The band's fourth studio long-player, Folklore, sounds like it's waiting for its own movie. It would be a deliberately paced, Hitchcock-meets-Coen Brothers affair replete with Edwards' usual lyrical themes: God, death, mysterious women that bring on near obsessive delirium, and poetry best left to Edwards' own interpretation. Difference is this time that 16 Hp don't spastically punk out, but do adapt Hungarian and Tuvan (you know Tuva, where they have that cool throat singing) folk tunes. Save for a bluegrassy Carter Family remake, "Single Girl," and the closing mazurka, "La Robe a Parasol" (oui, in French), this is music of brooding sheen and light squinting through pensive darkness. Not only is it a fine companion piece to Edwards' recent Woven Hand solo project, but exactly the kind of album over which Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, Lee Hazlewood, and Tom Waits should have coffee. Now, let me find "Thornton" in my Rolodex.... [Jet Set/ Jamie Lee Rake]

This album review was originally printed in ISSUE 97 of HM Magazine. Order the Print Version of HM for tons more reviews of new albums.
©2002 HM Magazine - All Rights Reserved

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