Barn Owl - Ancestral Star

As lonely and unending as the desert

Posted Saturday, 6 November 2010 in

While the term ‘Americana’ might normally be reserved for grumbly country blues, the third Barn Owl full-length could easily fall beneath that same banner, albeit a depiction of the beautiful, hostile West as told by the likes of John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy rather than hee-hawing good ol’ boys jawing round a campfire. Lonesome guitars wend their way through the shimmer of rising heat, synth swells collapse into dust and a plaintive violin calls to a long-lost lover, all of which twines itself together to form a rich experimental drone that’s as vast, lonely and unending as the desert images they conjure.

Alex Deller

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