Customer Reviews

Olden

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A peculiar release for a band with only four full length albums, one E.P. and a live album. "Olden" marks the 10th anniversary of the band's first recording sessions.

12 tracks recorded over a two year period, 6 live tracks and two interview snippets. Despite being a hodgepodge assembly, "Olden" is remarkably coherent. 16 of the tracks made it to later albums and only two songs "Train Serenade" and "Slow Guilt Trot" make their debut here.

While many would consider this an unnecessary, redundant release, it is actually superior in many ways to the major label versions that would appear later. These versions are much more gritty, earthy and unpolished, a sound that suits 16HP creaky bandoneon, jangly guitars, plunking banjo and haunting vocals quite well.

Standout tracks include the apocalyptic "Coal Black Horses", the hypnotic "My Narrow Mind" and the driving "Slow Guilt Trot."

This is a collection of live material from three seperate dates in 1993 and 94. It showcases everything I love about old sixteen horsepower. They have changed a lot in the last ten years and are even better now but this old stuff is amazing. Sixteen Horsepower are an amazing band because they play a type of music unlike any other band. Rooted in old time roots music and church music, they have a sound that is timeless. Their music is beautiful, creepy, exciting, and perfect. I love it. The only thing I don't like about this album is the brief snippits of interviews that are used to break up the recordings. They are too short to provide any insight at all. If they didn't want to put any meaningful discussion on the cd, they shouldn't have bothered at all. Otherwise, I recommend this CD wholeheartedly.

This album can be downright terrifying. Some of the music sends chills up my spine. I describe the first song as thus: A hillbilly funeral shambles down the main street of a one horse town in Appalachia carrying a pine coffin and playing a squeezebox, while an old blues man picks away on a porch on the side. It points to the dark heart of old time Southern religion and mountain culture and to the feuds and moonshine that went along with it. I once watched a documentary on the rural Holy Ghost church where people dance around with venemous snakes with the belief that if they have not sinned then the snakes will not harm them. This is the soundtrack to that dance.

Sixteen Horsepower is an amazing blend of Alternative Rock, Americana, Goth, and Punk. This band from Denver combines vocals that are part goth, part punk, and part Cold Mountain-like Americana with tripy strings, anthem-like drums, a haunting piano, and a whole host of traditional instrumentations. The entire mix is a riveting experience is in the category I call Gothic Americana.

Olden left me shivering! Imagine yourself dropped down into a funeral or revival in some deep, dark part of Appalachia; there are odd people dancing around the dead body of their grandfather...or sister...or cousin. There is a band playing in the corner; this is Sixteen Horsepower's Olden.

The amazing thing is that this is not a coherent studio album, but a collection from their first ten years of existence. You might never know it from listening as it is one long trip into the heart of darkness that is southern gothic.

These songs are at the same time haunting and darkly spiritual. Sixteen Horsepower are the darker side of belief revealed.

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A Guide to my Music Rating System:

1 star = Not worth the blood dripping from your ears/
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good music, but not life altering.
5 stars = This music changed my world in at least some small way.