3 out of 5

Label: Sounds Familyre

Produced by: Robert Ferbrache

Gah, you got me again, David Eugene Edwards!  I’ve listened to more Wovenhand / Woven Hand discs than I’ve actively reviewed, but each time it’s the same damn experience: “Wow, why have I not been listening to this majestically moody band like every damn day!  I forgot how much I loved -” editor’s note: rose-tinted glasses’ love “- Sixteen Horsepower!  Of course Woven Hand would be great!  Let me start looking up which album to listen to next while the rest of this disc plays!”  Cue fifteen minutes later, when I’m no longer thinking about the band at all.  For the second part of that repeated experience is to be rather completely underwhelmed: moods never peak in anything really affecting; majesty never flourishes beyond a couple of nice touches, shaded elsewhere by too many experimental wanderings, or a recording that mushes all the levels down to somber.

Mosaic is, definitely, the closest to breaking that mold so far, as it sequences a lot of more notable tracks – ones with actual build ups to choruses, or hooks that are unique beyond DEE drawling strum style – throughout the disc, instead of crowding them to beginning or end.  As such, my “Wow!” thought actually reoccurred multiple times, but then it’d dawn on me that I’d actually circled back around to the beginning of the album, and question, once more, what happened during the rest of the runtime.

I still really like the concept of Wovenhand, and will likely return to keep trying in the future to see if I finally “get” it.  Which seems fitting for an artist so eternally tortured by the same religious / moral demons that he’s made the same album like twenty times.