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Album Details

• Artist: Calexico
• Album: Garden Ruin
• Label: Quarterstick
• Year of Release: 2006
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2006-04-26

Now that John Convertino and Joey Burns are solely focusing on Calexico we get to hear the most focused effort yet from the Tucson group. We started to hear this happen on Feast of Wire but Garden Ruin is taken a slight direction change once again. John and Joey are joined in the studio with their touring band making a very solid performance here. Straight away on the album opener "Cruel" I get a huge Jayhawks vibe. It is a beautiful song that takes a lot of the complexities of the Jayhawks and integrates the intricate songwriting that Calexico is so good at. It sounds complicated but it comes across so gracefully. And speaking of graceful, the album closer is the best song on this brilliant album. It's called "All Systems Red" and this one reminds me of something Josh Rouse would probably do. It could have been a complete disaster but the French "Nom de Plume" is creepy enough and dark enough to warrant some romance. So almost absent is the sort of Tex-Mex style that was so prominent on earlier releases (one song is very obvious). Garden Ruin is a very impressive accomplishment for Calexico.

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