3 out of 5

Label: Sounds Familyre

Producer: David Eugene Edwards

Well, here we go with another underwhelming Woven Hand release.  Despite having many elements that should work for me – a doom and gloom singer, flush production, an overall moody vibe – I just haven’t been able to get into WH.  I own several discs, and on each, there are moments that wake me up, that make think that now I’m hearing it, but then its gone.  ‘Blush Music,’ before this, had more of a desirable effect thanks to these slow-ass dirge interludes that would lead up to traditional songs; it really made you earn Edwards’ bleak compositions, whereas ‘Consider the Birds’ ends up almost sounding like a shtick once you’ve been through a couple iterations of his strum and shimmer.  Not helping things are the somewhat inaccessible portraits Edwards paints with his lyrics – images of birds and kings and ownership and worship are floating about but never fully materialize into a recognizable emotion beyond what can be assumed by the dour blanket placed over everything.  Songs that stand out do so with some bold and exciting enhancements – percussion clatter on ‘To Make a Ring,’ some aggressive noise on closer ‘Into the Piano’ – but ‘Consider’ can’t seem to leverage those highlights into anchors to weigh the disc down.  With each track at about 4 minutes and the entire middle stretch of the disc lacking much obvious variation (its there, it’s just played close to the chest, subtle samples and variations to the WH ‘sound’), you have to be a full-on fan of the minimalist style of early Iron & Wine and such to buy in, and even then you need to be in sync with DEE’s vague lyrical themes.    The record is still far from boring or bad, but it just sits at this point where you’re expecting something to suddenly emerge and grab you… and then when it does, by the time it sinks in that the moment’s arrived, the next track is playing and smoothing over the memory.