Ancestral Star

Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti formed the San Francisco duo Barn Owl after meeting in an American Indian science class and bonding over a love of doom metal, drone rock, free jazz, and Americana folk. Ancestral Star tastefully blends all these influences, then stretches them across an ever-changing sonic topography. “Sundown” opens with a magnifying glass held over the pitted textures of dual guitar distortion played at a crawling pace, before “Visions in Dust” takes a more assertive stand on composition. Its lazy stride requires a patient listener, as Porras and Caminiti slowly build up the tunes before arranging them. The 10-minute title track plays like an epic journey, starting with lilting blankets of ambience that gradually ascend in volume. The guitars gradually shift to approximate those of ambient black metal before thinning out onto a more organic minimalist ground.