Evan Caminiti

You'll probably know Evan Caminiti as one half of the brilliant avant-metal band Barn Owl, but here he's forging a path as a solo artist for Digitalis, devising four towering guitar pieces that move beyond the pursuit of drone and sludge and take on a more slippery, mystical quality. Protracted sustains are still snaking all over this album, but there's a carefully chiselled-out textural quality here that transcends any preconceptions you might have about this being an exercise in Earth-aping stoner minimalism. After the five-minute introductory splurge of 'Frozen Plains' (think the Dead Man soundtrack reconfigured with a ghoulish sense of disharmony) the epic 'Melting Temple / Plumes Of Babylon' snarls into life, morphing between grizzled low-end weight and airy landscapes littered with chimes and soft, steely tonal vapours. The outro even features a spot of acoustic guitar arpeggiation, lightening the tone up a little before the deep echo-blues of 'Midnight's Road' kicks in like a duet between Stephen O'Malley and Loren Connors. The final track lends the album a raga-like meditative quality, although this still manifests itself with a certain amount of doom-mongering menace. Ace.