People often ask if I plan to leave the grand U.S. of A. once I finish my studies, and I never know how to respond. Despite the multitude of reasons to do so, I cannot deny that I am bound to this land, utterly and completely, through its music.

And they hear that and tell me it’s a phase. They always say it’s a phase. That once I really start to work and live and choke on the politics of this place I’ll be running so far and so fast that I’ll wish I had inserted the obligatory Fugazi or Zombies reference here.

Those who read this know better because they, like me, live for their love of music.

Which brings me to Sixteen Horsepower, a band (until recently) in the business of serving up thick slabs of sound more frequently than “songs” in the traditional sense. They are one of the many reasons I hesitate before answering questions like the one above, and they make me reexamine the importance of asking which came first, the song or the song title? With “American Wheeze” I suspect the latter. I hear the raspy strain of the Chemnitzer Concertina—one hand attempting to catch up with the other—and think of the battle between the old, the able, and tradition versus adaptation.

It is beyond me to attempt any sort of genre classification in regards Sixteen Horsepower, but suffice it to say I breathe their music and inhale the South. And the West. And the Midwest. Pretty much everywhere on this nearly four million square mile piece of land but the Northeast, which is impressive for a three-piece band hailing from Denver, Colorado.

The first Sixteen Horsepower song I heard, “Outlaw Song” off 2002’s Folklore, made me feel the crunch of the grit between my teeth. I heard the steady plodding step of the banjo and knew the lyrics that followed would not be, “Oh. My name? My name is David Eugene Edwards. And you are?” Instead they were “So they asked again what was my name / They asked again what was my name / And two were dead before they could move / Two were dead before they could move / That’s my name / That’s my name, if you please.” That is when I knew I’d found a band that could transport me, all of me, to a time of cowboys and outlaws better than any Sergio Leone film. And that’s saying something.

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