Owen Tromans
Album: Golden Margins
Label: Sacred Geometry
Tracks: 9
Website: http://www.soundcloud.com/owentromans

Owen Tromans’ name will be familiar through his leadership of the band San Lorenzo (championed by John Peel back in the days), and his subsequent career has seen him release a number of acclaimed solo albums. However, on his latest opus, Golden Margins, Owen reunites with both his band The Elders (with whom he recorded The Fall Of Acre five years ago) and long-time collaborator Joe Bennett (of Dreaming Spires and Goldrush) for a brand new set of diverse, charming yet chilling songs that convey a keen sense of seasonal ebb and flow within a well-defined sound-world that’s sometimes as much spooky chamber folk as dusty Neil Young Americana.

Maybe the pedal-steel-and-trumpet-driven mode of the opening, title track is deceptive, for Owen also capably explores differing musical climates during the ensuing course of these nine songs. Saltwater Curse is suitably eerie, and Queen Of Spain brings a delicious acoustic tracery to its pithy poetic litany. Pyramids almost cautiously rocks, but satisfies, as does (eventually) the loping anthem Bird Come Down.

Maybe the would-be-epic eight-minute1682, which recounts a tale drawn from the annals of the witch trials of 17th century England, suffers a touch in the development stage from the comparatively plodding mundanity of its setting; but taken on its own terms in isolation from the rest of the album it convinces. As more immediately does album closer I Saw Him, a masterly evocation of shadowy menace. Yeah, in the end this one’s a keeper.

David Kidman