2025 was another extraordinary year for Scottish singer-songwriter Dean Owens. Last year started with a headline show at Celtic Connections in Glasgow to launch Owens’ acclaimed twelfth studio album, Spirit Ridge, before touring Australia with his band The Sinners for the first time. Then, 2025 closed with Owens being voted Best UK Artist in the Americana UK annual Readers’ Poll for the fifth consecutive year. That’s an unprecedented run, reinforced by the fact he was listed in the Best Americana Artist and in the Best Album categories as well – the only UK artist to achieve such a feat.
Spirit Ridge was a powerful, atmospheric album produced by the highly regarded Italian producer and musician Don Antonio. Recorded in a converted 400-year-old farmhouse in Italy, the album Owens collaborated with a fantastic team of players, including Calexico’s John Convertino, with whom he has developed an ongoing musical relationship since working with him and other members of the desert-noir specialist band on his 2022 album Sinner’s Shrine. Spirit Ridge follows on naturally from that fine album, evoking similar moods.
2026 has begun in a similar manner with a show at Folk Alliance International in New Orleans, and Owens also expects to begin recording his next record back in Italy with The Sinners. But before we look forward to a new album, we get to immerse ourselves in a new video for one of the standout tracks from Spirit Ridge. Here is the visual for Face The Storm (The Buffalo). Owens’ voice, low and resonant, comes from deep within his heart and soul as he sings of resilience in the face of hardship over a slow, tense beat. The video, created by Ruth Barrie of Waltzer Films, features vast landscapes in snowfall, harsh and washed of colour, reflecting the bleakness of adversity. But by the end, there’s colour in those dramatic skies and the hint of a rainbow – there’s hope to be found in our perseverance.
Owens says of the song’s inspiration and theme: “I wrote this when I was in Wyoming and Montana touring with some friends of mine, The Two Tracks. I’d always wanted to see the great American Bison in real life, and finally got the chance when we took a little excursion into Custer State Park in South Dakota. I love it that buffalo face into the storm and never back down, that they manage to struggle through extremely hard conditions. I’m lucky that I have some very special people who have supported me in my life who have that same strong spirit and willpower.”
Look out for Owens on a short tour in North England during April 2026. Blending the sounds and feel of America’s deserts, Scotland’s green Highlands, and its industrial heartlands, Dean Owens crafts a unique combination of folk and americana. Face The Storm (The Buffalo) is a perfect example of Owen’s intense and purposeful songwriting. Be absorbed.
