16 Horsepower’s third full-length CD (their first on Razor & Tie) is a brooding, southern-gothic statement of fear and faith. The trio is based in Denver, Colorado, but its music is firmly based in the American South of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty. Mostly written by frontman David Eugene Edwards, 16 Horsepower’s music is a dense melange of country, folk, Calvinist hymns and hard heartland rock.
Edwards has said in interviews that he receives his songs from communion with God and from reading the Bible. His vision of God and creation seems judgmental and apocalyptic, and it makes for some music that is arresting, intense and at times disturbing. Edwards provides emotive vocals and plays guitar and banjo, Kevin Soll plays cello and bass and Jean Yves-Tola plays drums, with some fiddle and accordion provided by guest players. Lyrically and musically, Secret South is multi-layered with metaphor and symbol, and seldom is heard an encouraging word.
The album opens with deep, sludgy bass notes that seem to sing “doom, doom, doom” at the beginning of the uptempo rocker “Clogger.” “Come on shake me down, give my conscience a pounding,” Edwards pleads as the guitar and fiddle swirl and the drums and bass throb.
The final chord has barely died away when Edwards’ banjo sketches out the traditional old-time hymn “Wayfaring Stranger.” Edwards’ manipulated vocals sound like they come from a century-old cylinder recording, which along with the rest of the production on this track enunciates Edwards’ vision of a cold, steel-plated heaven. As though through tightly clenched teeth, he sings of “going over home” with no joy, only a weary anticipation of release from suffering.
Secret South continues through its entire length in much the same vein. Surprisingly, though, it’s filled with strangely catchy melodies, memorable lyrics and even a number of musical hooks that can keep you coming back for another listen, almost against your will.
Edwards’ lyrics are sprinkled with Biblical allusions, which sometimes shed the only light in 16 Horsepower’s dark work. Amid the crashing cymbals, soaring distorted guitar feedback, sinewy violin and moaning cello on “Cinder Alley,” Edwards sings of “the Beast,” and of seeing “the heel of the Father crush the serpent for you.” The plodding “Burning Bush” and mid-tempo cover of Bob Dylan’s “Nobody ‘Cept You” are double-sided love songs that sometimes seem to speak to God, sometimes to a human lover. “Nobody,” with a truly catchy tune and captivating lyrics, is an affecting confession of devotion to an object of love that seems the only stable thing in a world gone mad.
“Poor Mouth” ‘s haunting tune is mated with lyrical and melodic hooks that insinuate themselves into your mind more deeply with each listen. “Splinters” is done in the style of heartland bands like Live, starting with nothing but a strummed guitar playing ominously dark chords, and building to a cacophonous climax; and it all meshes tightly with the lyrics using a tornado as metaphor for the hand of God or fate: “I fell upon that rock./I did not die, just badly broken.” “Just Like Birds” is another love song of sorts, in which the narrator seeks refuge from the judgement falling on the world in the presence of another frightened soul. “Straw Foot” ‘s banjo and bowed bass sketch a demented square dance of paranoia and redemption. The last line in the last verse on the album is “It ain’t no sin, son, to be forgiven.”
Secret South is not light listening. This is a powerful record that never strays from its central vision, no matter how harrowing that vision may be.
(Razor & Tie, 2000)
