Attention all fans of weak and painfully insipid music everywhere: Calexico has exactly what you are looking for. Where this band has previously excited and enticed with magical blends of southwestern spice and powerful American rock, they now wallow in some dismal land of monotonous acoustic balladry. It's sort of like listening to late Bruce Springsteen after falling in love with Nebraska, only more disappointing because Calexico has written way better songs than that guy.
Quarterstick
Feast of Wire made me dance, daydream, and flat out rock when it was first released. There was a misty, unspeakable quality to the whole album that made it shimmer, but there was enough force and drive in the music to give it a sharp edge. It was fun to listen to and catchy to boot, but there was enough fire in the songwriting to make it stand out, to make it feel individual and unique. Garden Ruin, on the other hand, sounds flat. Its visual equivalent is a large, flat mass of land filled with nothing but sand. Gone are all of the flourishes that made previous Calexico records feel special; it sounds as though the band took everything that made them great and filed it down to be perfect for radio replay. Normally an average album from a great band is still worth paying attention to, but this is an especially bad drop in quality for Calexico.
To be more clear, every last song on this album is catchy in some way or another, but after just a few minutes I lose interest in the music and start to wonder what else I have that I could put on besides this. It took me a few tries to get through the entire album, not because I didn't like any of the melodies, but because I could literally predict when the vocal harmonies were going to appear and when trumpets or slide guitar would make an entrance. At points I thought Mark Knopfler was going to appear on the album. The smooth guitars and utterly soft texture Garden Ruin carries with it reminds me of why Dire Straits' last album failed so horribly. This isn't exciting rock music, this is horribly bland background music meant for people to ignore. Remember watching High Fidelity and thinking that the Belle and Sebastian reference was horribly appropriate? That's just how I feel about this album. It's ambient music without any of the attractiveness that Eno and others managed to pull out of the genre. It's music to play for your parents when they're worried about the kind of music you're getting into. It's a distraction and place holder for other bands that sound dangerous and that are palpably horned. Nothing about Garden Ruin is edgy, it's simply a record to pass the time with, while nothing more noticeable is happening.
When a band flattens out like this, I always fear for them, but in reality I'm probably fearing more for myself. I loved Feast of Wire, I even enjoyed their split with Iron and Wine. With Garden Ruin, however, Calexico are getting sleepy and putting people to sleep because of it. I like quiet songs and I like romantic songs, maybe even a few sentimental tunes here and there. The lack of vitality on this record doesn't stem from its subject matter, but from the music itself. A song like "Deep Down" doesn't inspire some feeling of deep emotional attachment in me nor does it drive me to feel particularly alone or angry, fighting internally in the way that the song attempts to. In place of genuine emotions, a sense of plastic and commercialized feeling emerges and completely ruins the song, turning a protest into a meaningless and especially mundane exercise. It reminds me of how easy it can be to make a band ready for radio. All it takes is the right production and a desire to please everyone simultaneously. It's an impossible goal to please everyone and be unique, the best music is always intensely personal and full of all the quirks that songwriters bring to their craft. Calexico, on this record, are trying to sound far too pleasing and have only succeeded in making a boring album as a result.
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