I’m on record as saying that Dean Owens is the best storyteller of his type on these shores.
The problem with statements like that is—even if they are true—it doesn’t leave you anywhere to go.
And of course, the way Owens releases records means that a number of these songs have been in the public domain since the summer.
It’s quite an old-school approach (I can still vividly remember rushing to the record shop in the ’90s to buy the first Poison or Bon Jovi single released from whatever album they had coming out) in this digital age. As ever, there’s an analogue warmth to Owens’ work that recalls a pre-internet era.
Although I will admit to listening to this on Spotify to write this review, with the East England road network hurtling past my coach window in the early evening darkness. Owens, like all the greatest writers, can transport you to other worlds. A world where my beloved football team hadn’t been thumped again and I didn’t have hours before I got home would be nice, Deano, but whatever.
No, rather, on “Spirit Ridge,” it’s the rolling hills of Italy that occupy the mind. He’s moved from the usual desert landscapes to Europe to record this, and the feel of work like “Light This World,” say, is more lush than the last couple.
And when he is in “band” mode like this, it is striking how Owens always manages to find exactly what’s needed in terms of musicality.
It all starts in relatively understated fashion, with “Eden Is Here”—a cinematic landscape, sparse yet rumbling—and when it’s met with the instrumental of “Spirito” (the type of thing he’s done on his last couple of records with Calexico), it makes for quite the opening.
“My Beloved Hills” is beautiful, and when he sings the line “when I leave this place my heart will not,” surely he’s underscoring the whole record? It was evidently a special project.
The way he writes, the color and texture he creates, means that by turns there are eerie pieces like “The Buzzard and the Crow” or the fun and funky “Burn It All.” Not for nothing does he exclaim “oh yeah!” here, as if he’s surprising himself.
“Face the Storm (The Buffalo)” is different again—oppressive, like it’s just you and the band in your headphones.
When I reviewed the EPs that preceded this, the demo version of “Sinner of Sinners” stood out—and the fleshed-out finished article is astonishingly good too.
There’s a kind of swing flavour to “Wall of Death” (Owens has family who were circus performers), and the horn section brings to mind a Prohibition-era jazz club.
The amount of ground this covers in 45 minutes or so is quite something—from a broken relationship being pored over on “A Divine Tragedy” to the poetry of “The Spirit of Us” (which would be a wonderful song in any era) to “The Lion Tamer,” about his ancestor who was an actual lion tamer. “In these mountains he is with me all the time, but I can’t tame the lion,” sings Owens. And maybe that’s the point. For him, “the lion” is whatever drives him to create these songs—and when they’re as good as “Spirit Ridge,” we can all be thankful that the desire still burns as strong as ever.
Rating: 9/10
