Garden Ruin

What I love about 'Feast of Wire' and its predecessors 'Hot Rail', 'Black Light' and 'Spoke' is Calexico's incredible sense of atmosphere and protrayal of the environment in which these albums were recorded. They simply took me away from an otherwise dull existence in the south of England. The albums also had some tight musicianship (drummer Convertino's brush style on earlier albums is fabulous, whilst Burn's vocals and nylon stringed guitar work have improved greatly over the years).

However, with 'Garden Ruin' I can only help but be disappointed. The songwriting is, in my humble opinion, not as strong as anything on 'Feast of Wire' and the production a little forced. The atmosphere is non-existant. I think Calexico may have hit a stumbling block here and I can only hope that they get this new, workmanlike (MOR even) sound out of their system.

There are a couple of highlights though, and are worth a listen - 'Roka' and 'All Systems Red' are slow burners and somewhat achieve the heights of former glories.

'Cruel' is a great start, a brisk bass line driving a lyric about enivironmental issues. Backed by horns and trumpet this sounds like a thoroughly modern and politicised Calexico. 'Yours and Mine' is brief acoustic song that feels slightly out of place but is fine enough. 'Bisbee Blue' is rather pedestrian, never quite getting out of first gear and sounding rather like the Travelling Wilburys as it plods along. 'Panic Open String' builds slowly, Burns' falsetto works well enough here as he sings of power grids and solar panels. 'Letter To Bowie Knife' is much more like it though. It bursts into a fast-paced rock song that sounds like The Edge has been drafted in on guitars.

It feels like Side 2 starts with 'Roka', a return to the dusty borderlands of previous albums, and almost a hint of the Mariachi sound. The majority of the lyric is sung in Spanish by Ampara Sanchez. 'Lucky Dime' is much less successful, a cliched lyric and slouchy lounge music sound that just seems out of place. 'Smash' is understated at first but builds nicely before 'Deep Down' rekindles the rocky urgency. Whipped along with electric guitars it is the least typical Calexico song here in some ways but it actually sounds very good indeed. 'Nom De Plum' is the oddest track on the album. Plonking along with banjo and a rather unconvicing french lyric it just passed me by. At least 'All Systems Red' finishes on a high note, a fairly epic climax with strings, horns and a squalling finale.

I doubt any Calexico fan will love everything on 'Garden Ruin', but you will not hate it either. It is bold, imaginative and has definite highlights. Who knows what they will do next-judging from this it could be pretty much anything.