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Garden Ruin

by

Calexico

 
Garden Ruin

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Avg: 4.0 (475 ratings)

Perennial faves pull off a perfect reinvention.

  • We Say...

    Review by Yancey Strickler

    In these days of immigration debates, guest worker programs and Minutemen-patrolled Southern borders, Calexico — a band that is, like their native Arizona, bilingual to the extremo — are perhaps the perfect group for these trying times, their dusty mariachi horn flourishes and throaty country ballads the great unifier between immigrant and protectionist, the meek and the powerful.

    Such would have been the case eight years ago, back when Calexico mainmen Joey Burns and John Convertino riffed on Morricone and mariachi on the exceptional The Black Light. For Calexico's new album, Garden Ruin (and the Iron & Wine split EP, In the Reins), those border-busting flourishes have been relegated to the periphery as John and Joey apparently awoke one morning to discover that — the hell? — they were two damn fine alt-country songwriters.

    The track that best illustrates the charms of Garden Ruin is "Bisbee Blue," an airy ditty without a care on its shoulders. Burns' voice is coy and sure, and the stripped arrangement suits every bit of it well. And "Letter to Bowie Knife" is as fierce as Calexico will ever get, distorted power chords ringing out like a coyote's call.

    That mariachi stuff does make a few cameos, but, for Calexico, its day has passed. The point is, though, that theirs has not — and it's there that Garden Ruin truly begins. Certainly Calexicans who live and die by the vaguely lounge-y stuff will find the less colorful Ruin a bit disconcerting, and yet who among them has had to tour the U.S. playing Morricone variations night after night, undoubtedly feeling like they were trapped in Groundhog Day as directed by Sergio Leone? Not even John Wayne would come back for that, brother.

  • They Say...

    Review by Heather Phares, All Music Guide

    When a band starts out with an aesthetic as specific as Calexico's, sometimes expanding that sound means incorporating more pop elements into it. And, after years of being known -- accurately or not -- as the indie-mariachi band, Calexico may have felt boxed in by their very distinctiveness. Like Feast of Wire, Garden Ruin finds them moving further into more song-based, immediately accessible territory (their collaborations and performances with bands like Wilco and Iron & Wine may have also inspired them to tone down their theatricality). With no instrumentals -- a first on a Calexico album -- and less emphasis on elaborate arrangements, Garden Ruin presents an almost mainstream version of Calexico, with mixed results. At times, as on "Yours and Mine," the band strays toward typical alt-country and ends up sounding overly restrained and mature. However, the beautiful melodies on "Panic Open String" and "Bisbee Blue" (a warm little love song to Bisbee, AZ, where the album was recorded) and the '70s singer/songwriterisms of "Lucky Dime" prove that the band can bend pop to Calexico's sound instead of vice versa. Though Joey Burns' whispery vocals help make Garden Ruin feel initially more hushed than it actually is, it becomes clear as the album unfolds that Calexico haven't completely abandoned their flair for striking arrangements and drama. They've just channeled it in different directions. "Cruel" -- whose lyrics deal with environmental corruption -- nods to the classic Calexico sound with its swooning pedal steel, brass, and strings, while "Roka" is a haunted yet sexy-sounding duet that echoes the band's most stunning moments. "Letter to Bowie Knife" (which sounds like a kissing cousin to their fantastic cover of Love's "Alone Again Or?") marries lyrics like "This world's an ungodly place" to a buoyant melody, one of Calexico's time-tested tricks. Likewise, the gentlest, most intimate ballad is called "Smash" -- but even this relatively quiet song has thunderous timpani rolling in the distance. The band also rocks more than it has in the past, earnestly on "Deep Down" and with real anguish on Garden Ruin's striking final track, "All Systems Red." Ultimately, this album ends up being a more naturalistic take on Calexico's sound; just because it's less stylized doesn't mean it's less interesting -- it just takes a little more time for Garden Ruin's power to reveal itself.

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