CD Reviews

Calexico: Carried to Dust

Quarterstick

By ZETH LUNDY | September 2, 2008

3.0 Stars

If Calexico’s previous album, 2006’s Garden Ruin, was the Tucson band’s rabbit hole into indie-popdom, then this one is where they retrace their steps to more familiar geography: cinematic evocations of dry-heat desert winds, whispered twilit narratives, and the melting-pot manner of a border town. The band bring the tang of that elsewhere pop back to Carried to Dust, however, planting big-hook sensibility and the willingness to evolve within its Southwestern mood pieces. “Victor Jara’s Hands” and “Two Silver Trees” catapult rousing choruses from atmospheric depths; “Fractured Air” boasts mariachi-cum-dub horns and a wah-wah guitar that caresses the backbone of the hip-grind rhythm. True to its title, Carried to Dust moves along with wraith-like grace, a haunting and beautiful drift of songs about codebreakers, gravebound ghosts, and stars that “shone in slowness.” Amparo Sanchez, Pieta Brown, and Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam guest, but it’s Calexico’s two core members, Joey Burns and John Convertino, who continue to impress as a Southwestern Wrecking Crew — Convertino with his fluttering snare play and anxious rim shots and Burns with his partiality to nylon-stringed guitars and his secretive vocal delivery.

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Calexico
Joey Burns and John Convertino celebrate 10 years together as Calexico on Garden Ruin by embracing the Southwestern twang that’s always come so naturally to them and also by leaving it in the dust.
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Rhino’s second and concluding batch of Replacements reissues charts the Minneapolis band’s Great Descent from the heights of rock-and-roll nihilism to the pit of MOR blah.
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Better all the time
In 2006, Apple/EMI released the Beatles-soundtracked Cirque du Soleil companion piece Love , which mashed together songs from the band's repertoire in stunning remastered sound.
Peaceful Easy Feeling
The members of Calexico look like dads. They play a little like dads too.
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Call ’em twee or call ’em bookish (after all, they did take their name from a French children’s book), but don’t call Belle & Sebastian anemic.
Basia Bulat | Heart Of My Own
Like a Laurel Canyon Billie Holiday or a pixilated Tracy Chapman, Bulat sports a voice rich with vibrato, hearty oomph, and dignified lonesomeness.
He's their rock
The pantheon of Where Are They Nows is populated with fallen and faded demigods, yes, but could've-beens, almost-weres, and also-rans crowd the wings.
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As welcome as it is to have Newman’s acerbic wit back, it remains a singular pleasure to listen to a simple, devastating ballad like “Losing You.”
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Topics: CD Reviews , Sam Beam, Joey Burns, John Convertino, More

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