David Owen Thomas IV

If any member of the Esperanza family has seen more of the US of A, it is one of our latest roster additions, David Thomas Owen IV. He spent four years touring and recording as lead guitarist of Ohio-based outfit Lovedrug.  In 2008, after playing hundreds of shows in a total of 41 states, he decided to focus on his own material, packed his bags for the mountainscape of Montana, and began penning his solo debut Solace My King.

The songs that comprise this debut are an obvious departure from the material of Dave's former band. The ten tracks transport the listener to faraway lands where knights protect castle walls, lava spills into streets, and all is rendered into dust. It is a spectral, mystical world one might expect to find sealed within a music box or trapped under the glass of an ash-laden snowglobe. From the apocalyptic bombast of "Armageddon" to the scene-from-a-Tim Burton-film "Castles" to the soulful intonation resonating through "They Will Eat You Alilve", each song is a colorful journey to a different place and time, coasting on airy vocals and arrangements which David Thomas Owen IV has prepared and laid before us.