Very Close to, if not actually in, the CD player:
seen/heard ° stream album ° buy
seen/heard ° stream album ° buy
seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
A Raven’s Head and a Rattler’s Tale (Calexico, Bowery B'room)
Calexico passed through the Bowery Ballroom, last night on a mini-tour that includes Yo La Tengo’s annual Hoboken Hanukkah hushfest.
I like Calexico, but I want to like them so much more than I do. They’re consummate musicians, and their Southwestern-style folk-rock carries such great texture and mood with their songs... but their songs are lacking. They simply never climax, and their hushed lyrics never emerge from the landscapes that back them. A Calexico CD too often sounds like a soundtrack to a lost film.
I’d heard so many good things about their live performances that I really thought they’d bring the energy and drama missing from their recordings. And some of that there was, if at times it meant the wide open skies painted by their music started to darken with the stormy threat of indulgent jambandery. For the most part, though, it was well performed, entertainingly instrumented (a pair of trumpets, xylophone, lap-steel...) songs that all sort of ran together.
Southwestern-style folk-rock, by the way, is folk-rock with red bell peppers and Monterey jack. Just so you know.
For Southwestern-style folk-rock el supremo, add sour cream.