Dean Owens - Spirit Ridge
Award winning Scottish singer-songwriter Dean Owens has, with latest offering Spirit Ridge, beautifully dovetailed melancholy and melody with evocative, desert Americana and the Emilia-Romagna hills of Italy.
The lyrical concept of Spirit Ridge is equally evocative, as Owens states: "The album is for family. For those who are long gone, those who’ve recently passed on, those who are here right now and those whose spirits will be forever present in our lives… all around us on Spirit Ridge."
The yearning vocal of atmospherically sparse opener 'Eden Is Here' pays tribute to the area around Crinale Studio, which sits in the hills of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, where the album was recorded.
There’s also a familial link to the area, and to those long passed, as Emilia-Romagna is the land from which Dean Owen’s lion taming great, great grandfather came from.
The short instrumental 'Spirito,' which merges spaghetti western with Tex-Mex horns, leads to strings-backed ballad 'My Beloved Hills,' which continues the theme of homelands and family passed ("I can see my father, wandering…")
'Light This World' then provides uplifting, desert Americana contrast (the perfect antidote to "that lonely, dark road"), before the downtempo, slow folk-blues of 'The Buzzard and The Crow,' with its treated vocal, adds a deliciously darker tone.
The horns-affected 'Burn It All,' with its funky rhythm and mid-tempo groove, makes for another contrasting highlight; similarly 'Face The Storm (The Buffalo),' a downtempo desert prairie/ dark Americana that asks that you "stand your ground… when thunder roars" and push through any adversity.
The folk-blues and fiddle of 'Sinner Of Sinners' is a self-confessing tale of "a liar and a thief" who has a price upon his head, and a dark soul.
There’s also a darkness within follow-up folk number 'Wall Of Death,' which marries fun, up-tempo and upbeat musicality with a lyric about living with "the black dog" (a metaphor for being with someone who is suffering from depression). As such it stands as the most deceptively poignant song on the album.
The blues (desert style, with a splash of Nashville) come calling on 'A Divine Tragedy,' which features one of Dean Owen’s best, lamenting vocals ("I just don’t feel the same, I just can’t feel the rain…")
Penultimate number 'Spirit Of Us' then steps up as the singer-songwriter moment of the album.
Encapsulating the thematic essence of Spirit Ridge, this lovely acoustic guitar & vocal number is accompanied by subtle drum work and delicate electric guitar remarks.
At over five-and-a-half minutes, closing number 'Tame The Lion' is the longest track on the album and the rockiest.
A mid-tempo with an incessant, captivating groove and guitar-licks led outro (not dissimilar to the sort of song and arrangement Don Felder might come up with), the lyric nods to Dean Owens aforementioned great, great grandfather ("in the footsteps of the lion tamer, I have walked all my life…") and how we all, in our way, walk alongside, and in the land of, our ancestors.
With a great, warm sounding production from renowned Italian producer Don Antonio & Dean Owens (Antonio also plays on the album, including some delightful lap steel) and featuring an excellent Italian studio band, a number of guest musicians (including John Convertino & Martin Wenk of desert noir band Calexico) and Kirsten Adamson (daughter of the late and still lamented Stuart Adamson) on backing vocals, Spirit Ridge is as well written & well performed as it is atmospheric & captivating.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ
The lyrical concept of Spirit Ridge is equally evocative, as Owens states: "The album is for family. For those who are long gone, those who’ve recently passed on, those who are here right now and those whose spirits will be forever present in our lives… all around us on Spirit Ridge."
The yearning vocal of atmospherically sparse opener 'Eden Is Here' pays tribute to the area around Crinale Studio, which sits in the hills of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, where the album was recorded.
There’s also a familial link to the area, and to those long passed, as Emilia-Romagna is the land from which Dean Owen’s lion taming great, great grandfather came from.
The short instrumental 'Spirito,' which merges spaghetti western with Tex-Mex horns, leads to strings-backed ballad 'My Beloved Hills,' which continues the theme of homelands and family passed ("I can see my father, wandering…")
'Light This World' then provides uplifting, desert Americana contrast (the perfect antidote to "that lonely, dark road"), before the downtempo, slow folk-blues of 'The Buzzard and The Crow,' with its treated vocal, adds a deliciously darker tone.
The horns-affected 'Burn It All,' with its funky rhythm and mid-tempo groove, makes for another contrasting highlight; similarly 'Face The Storm (The Buffalo),' a downtempo desert prairie/ dark Americana that asks that you "stand your ground… when thunder roars" and push through any adversity.
The folk-blues and fiddle of 'Sinner Of Sinners' is a self-confessing tale of "a liar and a thief" who has a price upon his head, and a dark soul.
There’s also a darkness within follow-up folk number 'Wall Of Death,' which marries fun, up-tempo and upbeat musicality with a lyric about living with "the black dog" (a metaphor for being with someone who is suffering from depression). As such it stands as the most deceptively poignant song on the album.
The blues (desert style, with a splash of Nashville) come calling on 'A Divine Tragedy,' which features one of Dean Owen’s best, lamenting vocals ("I just don’t feel the same, I just can’t feel the rain…")
Penultimate number 'Spirit Of Us' then steps up as the singer-songwriter moment of the album.
Encapsulating the thematic essence of Spirit Ridge, this lovely acoustic guitar & vocal number is accompanied by subtle drum work and delicate electric guitar remarks.
At over five-and-a-half minutes, closing number 'Tame The Lion' is the longest track on the album and the rockiest.
A mid-tempo with an incessant, captivating groove and guitar-licks led outro (not dissimilar to the sort of song and arrangement Don Felder might come up with), the lyric nods to Dean Owens aforementioned great, great grandfather ("in the footsteps of the lion tamer, I have walked all my life…") and how we all, in our way, walk alongside, and in the land of, our ancestors.
With a great, warm sounding production from renowned Italian producer Don Antonio & Dean Owens (Antonio also plays on the album, including some delightful lap steel) and featuring an excellent Italian studio band, a number of guest musicians (including John Convertino & Martin Wenk of desert noir band Calexico) and Kirsten Adamson (daughter of the late and still lamented Stuart Adamson) on backing vocals, Spirit Ridge is as well written & well performed as it is atmospheric & captivating.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ