Calexico
Algiers

THE REVIEW

This time it takes them from Tucson, Arizona, to the distant New Orleans; a journey from west to east, from the desert to the sea and the Mississippi River.

The new landscape, extremely different from the dusty roads Joey Burns and John Convertino were used to, establishes a give/receive relationship with the two. The sea often features in the album's tracks, the water, impacting people's lives and well represented in the wave motion of the cover art.

"Algiers," which is a neighborhood of New Orleans, gives a jolt to the duo's career. Without straying too far from the two previous works, "Garden Ruin" and "Carried to Dust," it raises the bar and aspires to become a staple of the genre.

A more carefree approach to writing the pieces, there are no experimental elements they accustomed us to in the past, but the album proceeds with an effective and relaxed rhythm and comes to an end almost unnoticed. Love songs and songs of hope, not to stop and look back, but to face the future without fear; an invitation that can also be extended to the residents of New Orleans, afflicted in the past by scourges difficult to forget.

The listening flows very well, divided into two parts by the title track, the only instrumental piece, but the two tracks that in my opinion concretely reflect the album's flow are Fortune Teller and Maybe On Monday. It is the Calexico-sound becoming accessible to the mainstream audience, songs that "stay".

There's the Spanish of No Te Vayas, with the main voice given to Jacob Valenzuela, already present for years in the live lineup of the group (he sang Ispiración in the previous album). And there's the Cuban rhythm that sneaks in at the beginning of Sinner In the Sea and bursts with that frenzied organ battling Burns' voice, akin to Nick Cave at this juncture. The Vanishing Mind closes the work with unsettling sounds.

In the Deluxe version of the album, we find the other side of Calexico: "Spiritoso", recorded live in Vienna and Potsdam accompanied by a symphony orchestra. The second disc includes both great pieces from the past and some tracks from "Algiers," which, revisited through strings, aspire to become almost a soundtrack for an old western film. In short, a gem not to be missed.

The group has opened up to new visitors, has grown, and has shown it can embark on an alternative path to the usual mariachi and folk-inspired pieces, spiced up with suggestive psychedelic experimentation. A path made of real songs, which have nothing to envy compared to those of the great American authors (and beyond) of the past.

Happy listening!