The Hidden Hand is the coolest band Wino’s ever worked up, and he’s been in some greats – I always go for his recent stuff most heavily, so yeah, Spirit Caravan too, less so Obsessed or Saint Vitus. This is the band’s third and to begin on a negative, I find the production a bit too raw and cardboardy, the bass tone clanged unfortunately in and around Lemmy and Steve Harris, and then Wino’s vocals a bit shaky, gravelly, mixed back. The rest of the presentation is friggin’ right on, this band being way up the metal grease pole on lyrics, writing sagely from the same historical disposition and even geographical area, oddly enough, like ‘n’ as Clutch, and less so but similarly, COC. Crazy, but you need the explanation in the bio - or I suppose interviews to come - to appreciate the story’s magnificence. Briefly, back a couple hundred years, a unifying hero from slave stock, er, unifies disparate factions of early Americans – or so says bassist Bruce Falkinburgh (whose very name fits the tale). But none of that is really in the dreamy, mystical, vague and beautiful lyrics. Really, if you think about it, both Cutch and The Hidden Hand are like The Band, but only metal. And Wino’s metal? Well, it’s his typical interesting, accessible, sludgy, psychedelic classic riffery crossing Sabbath to southern, noever too long in one place, never too simple or droney. Highlight: ‘Lightning Hill’, for its cool ass-backward riff and its wailing harmonica. Begrudge me an 8 but a low one, because yeah, I really think Wino’s had some warmer sounds in his past, both in his productions and his singin’s.