Album Review: El Mirador by Calexico

Americana mainstays' 10th album offers another supremely effective panoply of tempos, textures and colours that shows they've never sounded better Over the last two decades, Calexico have become something of a byword for consistency, reliability and all-round musical excellence, each of their albums having an immediately recognisable identity and dependable sound. It's therefore little surprise that their 10th album, El Mirador, continues this trend. The band’s creative axis of Joey Burns and John Convertino may now both live in other US states but for this album, they returned to their previous base in Tucson, Arizona at the studio of long time band keyboardist Sergio Mendoza and its influence, close to the Mexican border, looms larger arguably than ever before.

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The fiesta is back... At the beginning of last decade, Calexico settled into one comfortable alt-country/indie folk bubble that produced the brilliant Algiers. It seemed the band desired to maintain that momentum and soon after fell into a trap. Although the songs still shared the same lush arrangements and beautiful vocals, the diversity previous affairs possessed was fading.

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