Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 12
  2. Negative: 0 out of 12
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  1. The Wire
    Dec 22, 2010
    70
    Ancestral Star occasionally sounds so close to that group's 2005 Hex; Or Printing In The Infernal Method that it sometimes feels like a magnificently constructed reworking. [Nov 2010, p.64]
  2. 80
    Even on tracks where celestial melody and light shatter the swirling fug of riffs – making Barn Owl sound more like a whacked-out Dead Meadow – the mood within is h-e-a-v-y like a bewitching series of black metal incantations
  3. Uncut
    Dec 20, 2010
    80
    Evam Caminiti and Jon Porras' third album lumbers slow as Earth's stoner rock, but throws its arms open, in a slow-burning ritual, to the infinite, star-flecked space above the Californian wilderness. [Dec 2001, p.85]
  4. Mojo
    Dec 20, 2010
    80
    Ancestral Star finds Barn Owl alchemising those touchstones into new sonic vistas evoking either nocturnal desert chill or fathomless cosmic expanse. [Dec 2010, p.97]
  5. Dec 15, 2010
    70
    Barn Owl may repeat the past somewhat, but in a masterful way. Instead of taking away from the music, the sense of recognition that comes with these songs and their linked aesthetic gives you the necessary preparation to travel down the dusty and empty paths of drone.
  6. Dec 15, 2010
    80
    Having demonstrated their ability to adeptly blend movement and atmospheric melody, Caminiti and Porras should aim higher than simple--albeit skillful--drones. That said, Ancestral Star delivers more than enough to reward the patient listener.
  7. Dec 15, 2010
    80
    Barn Owl are adept at handling their equipment though, and have crafted a sound world in which the effects are essentially instruments themselves. It's an impressively broad palette too--whilst this music is undoubtedly slow to unfold and demands considerable patience from the listener, it does not feel one-dimensional or short on ideas.
  8. Dec 15, 2010
    80
    Lonesome guitars wend their way through the shimmer of rising heat, synth swells collapse into dust and a plaintive violin calls to a long-lost lover, all of which twines itself together to form a rich experimental drone that's as vast, lonely and unending as the desert images they conjure.
  9. Dec 15, 2010
    75
    It's an atmosphere-setting collection, with little in the way of memorable riffs or melodies. But that's the point: Earth has needed to slow its roll for a minute now. Here's the inspiration.

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