Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, I was raised listening to quite a bit of country music. I didn’t like a single bit of it, naturally, and I found a love for heavier music. I discarded modern country as pop music with slide guitars, cashing in on a fickle and conservative demographic (which I still hold to be true, as far as GAC or the radio is concerned.) I thought I’d never hear a band in the realm of country music that I would enjoy, but Wovenhand has proven me wrong.

To call Wovenhand a country band would be only marginally accurate. The Denver-based band grabs influences from a few different genres. Call them industrial folk or post-country, they have a dark and peculiar sound that can be best described as Gothic Americana. Imagine Johnny Cash writing an album with Nine Inch Nails in his final years instead of doing a one-song reinterpretation. You’d most likely have a sound close to Wovenhand.

I know Heavy Blog doesn’t live up to its name as much as it probably should, but I thought our readership had an open enough mind among them to warrant passing something like this on. Hell, they’ve toured with Tool. If that doesn’t give them cred as musicians, I don’t know what will. Their 2004 album Consider the Birds gets a full recommendation from myself and Mitch ‘Dethcaek’ West. Tortured vocal harmonies, haunting piano lines, visceral tribal percussion, and depressive gospel lyrics litter this apocalyptic country album. Forget everything you’ve known about country music, leave your biases at the door, and give this a listen.

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