Carried To Dust
Calexico\'s borderless blend of rock, country, and Tejano music ominously rolls across the Americas on *Carried to Dust*. This expansive album seamlessly slips from supple, Southwestern rocker \"Víctor Jara\'s Hands\"—a nod to the Chilean activist—to dusky, string-soaked laments like \"House of Valparaiso\" (warmed by the hushed harmonies of Iron & Wine\'s Sam Beam) and slinky, horn-powered waltzes on \"Inspiración.\" The duo then take a detour to Moscow for the woozy ballad \"Red Blooms\" before drifting into the ghostly, ambient mist of \"Contention City.\"
The latest from the wildly eclectic Calexico takes its cues from the group's two most recent records, the kitchen-sink aesthetic of 2003's Feast of Wire and the more basic rock-band approach of 2006's Garden Ruin. Iron & Wine's Sam Beam and Tortoise's Doug McCombs guest.
On 2006's Garden Ruin, Calexico wasn't above trying out an accessible alt-country formula: It was still the only notable indie-mariachi band out there, but that didn't mean that poppy numbers couldn't work. The conventional wisdom on that record unfairly painted the band as trying too hard for accessibility, which is…
From its beautiful, spray-painted stencil artwork (courtesy of longtime Calexico cover artist Victor Gastelum) to the sounds within it, Carried to Dust recalls previous Calexico high points like The Black Light and, especially, Feast of Wire.
After ten years and, now, six albums, you might think there’s little new to be said about the humble and rewarding group Calexico.
<p>They cast a critical eye over their homeland, but from the storytelling angle of a striking writer who uses his free time to travel around the US</p>