Calexico – Carried to Dust (2008)

Calexico is an indie rock band from Arizona, who combine lots of different styles in their music, most notably some Mexican stylings and alternative Americana country. Carried to Dust is already their sixth album and in my opinion, it's probably their best album to this day. As much as I like the Mexican music bits in their music, I felt like in the early albums, Calexico failed to really have their own unified sound together, which meant that some songs were excellent while some others didn't really work at all. Carried to Dust is a feast from beginning to finish. There are still many different styles on the album, but it all still sounds very together. Also, some of the best hit songs from Calexico's career can be found on this album. The album cover also looks great, like from a noir-type comic book where the album could work as a soundtrack.



I have liked Calexico from the first moments I ever heard their music, but I wasn't super excited about them. Their music was just nice, but I didn't feel like I needed more to be exact. Then, about three years ago, I went to Manchester for a weekend trip and searched online what gigs I could see there. Calexico was playing that weekend and there were still some tickets left so I decided to go and see them. The gig tipped them from being an interesting enough band to being a really great band. They use lots of brass instruments in their music and hearing all of that live along with great overall atmosphere, I was finally convinced that Calexico was a lot better than what I had given them credit for.

The album starts with an indie rock song Victor Jara's Hands that has some strong latin influences. There are some great brass sequences, singing in Spanish and a rhythm that I could imagine hearing on the streets of Cuba. The second song, Two Silver Trees, made a real impression on me when I was preparing for the Manchester gig I just mentioned. I remember watching the music video for it and being a bit astonished how much I was moved by the great chorus. It's more traditional kind of indie Americana song. The News About William take us once again to Latin America with some excellent acoustic guitars and melodramatic melodies. Writer's Minor Holiday has a nice rolling rhythm with great rootsy electric guitars. Man Made Lake has a very dark and melancholic melody that kind of reminds me of Elbow, although the rhythm is a bit more captivating. Inspiracion is a proper Spanish-language latin song with some excellent brass-sounds. House of Valpariso continues with the latin style, at least when it comes to guitars, but the vocals are in a more traditional indie Americana style. Slowness is a bit more like an alt-country song. There are even some slide guitars in this song. Bend to the Road sounds like a song that could play in a Wim Wenders film on a prairie. The album ends in a experimental ambient bit, Contention City, that somehow fits in with the rest of the album even though, stylistically, it's completely different.

I already mentioned the music video for Two Silver Trees, so I'm going to link the music video here. The video is not that interesting. It's just the band playing in a pub somewhere and some city views, probably from Tucson, Arizona. Towards the end we see the band playing in a desert next to some airplanes. Even if the video isn't that interesting I think it gives a nice view on what the band is like when they're playing live, even if the brass instruments are missing.

From what I've heard of the later Calexico albums, they sound pretty great, but for some reason they are quite expensive and I've never bought them, but maybe I should as this album sounds so great right now.

Listen to the album on Spotify.