Woven Hand

After plowing the dark fields of gothic Americana with his band 16 Horsepower, David Eugene Edwards unveils a third album under his solo moniker Woven Hand. With Edwards's sinister growl underscored by seething atmospherics, Consider the Birds' ten songs convey a rumbling sense of peril and foreboding. You can actually hear a ghostly moan in the ramshackle rhythms of "To Make a Ring," while the tangled, unsettling "Bleary Eyed Duty" simulates the sound of some vague, disembodied howl. The clouds don't part until the final entry, "In the Piano," but its momentary optimism doesn't dispel the haunting tension that lingers long after these perilous melodies finally fade away.