Elm (Barn Owl) - Nemcatacoa

For my money, Barn Owl is the best new band to emerge in the last five years. Their trajectory has been meteoric, progressing musically and conceptually in leaps and bounds. I've been thrilled to be there from the beginning, watching and listening in awe as the duo of Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti have carved out an impressive niche of their own. Heavy doses of guitar savagery and tribal essence have them firmly planted at the top of the mountain. So it makes sense to deconstruct the duo and present each as a solo entity, soaring on their own.

Elm is the name of Porras' solo creations. His music retains the megasonics of Barn Owl, but finds his tutelage deep in the heart of the desert. "Nemcatacoa" is a lonesome, epic journey. Named after one of the deities of his Colombian heritage, his latest full-length (and first large-scale solo release) feels huge and endless. Walls of guitars shatter beneath the weight of the booming percussion blasts that find their way from the caves into the light. An acoustic guitar is mournfully plucked, the beginning of a procession of the dead. "Nemcatacoa" is an album begging for somebody, anybody to find and embrace.

Porras is a master artist. The instrumentation at work here is even more impressive when you consider it's played by a lone soul. Guitars, Rhodes, Harmonium, Trumpet and more echo through the caverns of the ancient Earth. Even though this album is dark and at times bleak, it never overpowers. Traversing similar aural planes as Sunn O))) and Earth, Porras is staking a claim all his own. As his voice wails over blankets of guitars, he never loses sight of the golden life ahead. Incredible.

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