Calexico has found its way over the border. “Garden Ruin” is the sixth full length album for this Tucson, Arizona band that has been known for their mariachi sound until now. Apparently, learning much from their collaboration with Iron and Wine on last year’s “In the Reins”, they have toned down the Mexicali leanings and come up with an alluring, subtle and heavily textured presentation.

Joey Burn’s whispery vocals on all the songs leave you wanting more in each performance and ultimately make you come back to the cd, finding something new and different with each listen. The lead off track (“Cruel”) is about industrial corruption but you wouldn’t know that without a careful listen to the lyrics, because the beautiful acoustic guitar textures and subtle horn arrangement distracts you at first. There’s many singer song-writer touches (“Yours and Mine”, “Smash”), the obligatory Spanish language duet (“Roka”) even a song sung in French (“Nom De Plume”) as if to show their versatility. Some slow burning rockers highlight the cd (“All Systems Red” and “Deep Down”) that wouldn’t be out of place on a U-2 album.

This is Calexico’s first full length album since 2003’s “Feast of Wire” but they’ve been continually releasing collaborations with other artists and eps of new songs and covers which have adhered to their tex-mex style. This is a surprising and welcome step forward. It’s nice to know a band can successfully change their basic style and still produce compelling and unique music that, judging from its early acceptance, is as intriguing as the work they’ve already done.  

Listen for lots of tracks all week from "Garden Ruin" by Calexico on Paul Shugrue's new music show, "Out of the Box"  Monday through Thursday from 7pm to 9pm and Saturday from 1pm to 5pm on Public Radio 89.5 WHRV-FM