We've almost worn out the cd player with this one....the only music I've heard in a long time that never gets old. I don't get the reviews that title this band as Christian;there are religious references, but not preachy..more searching and tortured {Who among us ex-religious/Christian types aren't tortured in some way?}. The obscure instruments, lyrics and hard driving beat make you want to dance and cry at the same time. My wife heard them on NPR a few years ago,& bought this CD. She claims I listened to it & wasn't impressed. While searching through our music collection a couple months ago, I pulled this out, listened and was hooked! My goodness, what a sound! We read that David E. Edwards was raised in a Nazarene household, ran away at age 16 & joined a punk band. You sure can tell from his lyrics. I honestly cannot see this band playing at a mainstream Christian rock festival. His lyrics are too scathing and tortured to be enjoyed by the run-of-the-mill Jesus freak who usually likes his music to reflect his pidgeon-holed religion. If you have friends you'd like to turn on to 16 Horsepower, we'd recommend this album. It sure hooked us!

Unlike many of the "Gothic Country" crowd, 16 Horsepower actually seem to believe the lyrics they sing, giving it a power that virtually all their peers lack. The band that come closest in attitude(-but NOT sound-) is "The Handsome Family", but where the Handsomes plug in Louvin Brothers-style bluegrass, 16 Horsepower adds distorted, Sergio Leone-esqe western- rock soundscapes. Both bands are scary, and must be heard by anyone who ever woke up hungover on Sunday morning and thought of sin and salvation instead of aspirin.

The best way I can describe this album is that it conjures images from John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics) and like that great American classic, this album puts you under a spell and does not let you go until its over, leaving you exhausted but utterly satisfied. The band takes traditional American roots music and fuses it into a dark and intense blend of folk rock, the perfect backdrop for lyrics dealing with spirituality and human suffering. David Eugene Edwards delivers the vocals with the same ferocity with which I imagine his grandfather, a traveling Nazarene preacher, must have addressed his flock. I recommend their entire catalog.

Each song on this album is at least solid, folk fun a la 16 Horsepower.
Tracks 8 through 12 seemed especially strong, being rather catchy and enjoyable.

I think I'd have to look up the spelling which I wont since this is a music review and not a written' review. Anyway a Band0neon is like an accordian but different in ways I dont understand, they feature this instument on a number of cuts with very haunting results.The lyrics are haunting as well, its a Flannery O'Connor mood crossed with all the greats of bluegrass ghosts, it creates a unique sound you would be a fool not to enjoy. It reminds me of the times as a child we visited old man Ritz's house deep in the woods behind our house, Mr. Ritz worked for Nasa and seldom visited his family farm getaway, so we ran amok on his property,never at ease mind you, but amok we ran. He was a scary figure who we never met and never expected to meet until one day I landed a job picking up rocks in a freshly plowed field, we would ride on a trailer behind a tractor and every so often the tractor would stop and we would hop off and pick up the rocks and throw them on the trailer. I suggested to Uncle Leon (the farmer who farmed Mr Ritz's property for him) that we just paint all the rocks red and have the migrant workers pick them up thinking they were tomatoes, he didnt think to much of this suggestion so we continued with our work. The next day we were picken' up rocks when a man walks up to Leon and told him we should paint the rocks red and tell the migrant workers they was tomatoes...This album reminds me of my first and only meeting with old man Ritz.Buy the album.