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NBHAP Rating: 4,5/5
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[one_half last=”yes”]CALEXICO
Edge Of The Sun
Release-Date: 13.04.2015
Label: City Slang
Tracklist:
01. Falling From The Sky
02. Bullets & Rocks
03. When The Angels Played
04. Tapping On The Line
05. Cumbia de Donde
06. Miles From The Sea
07. Coyoacan
08. Beneath The City Of Dreams
09. Woodshed Waltz
10. Moon Never Rises
11. World Undone
12. Follow The River
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK
‘Falling From The Sky feels like a first warm day of spring‘ we wrote about two months ago when the second single by the American desert veterans CALEXICO was released and was entitled our sound of the day. And here they are now all at once: Spring arrived and CALEXICO‘s latest masterpiece just fell from the sky, now being not only the sound of the day, but the album of the week.
Edge Of The Sun was not only highly anticipated, but also kicks off surprisingly fresh with the already known Falling from the Sky, a rather jolly piece of pop music which blends a modern synthesizer with the familiar horns section and a compelling chorus. And here we already have the first guest on this album: BAND OF HORSES‘ Ben Bridwell almost gives this song a vibe of SUPERTRAMP in their better years. But soon the sweltering heat reduces the stream to a rivulet: ‘The days are growing shoal…’ Burns sings with the maximum effort those temperatures could allow. Well wait, this isn’t CALEXICO‘s frontman there, hypnotically chanting with a husky yet soft voice. It’s Sam Beam from IRON & WINE. The music runs smooth, almost spontaneous and lighthearted. You also feel that while swirling through the Woodshed Waltz or the reggae-ish Moon Never Rises later on the album, but lyrically the band picks up stifling themes from The Black Light (1998) and Feast Of Wire. An Antagonism? No, it’s rather exciting, because those two sides – the lighthearted surface and the stifling core – are held together by a remarkably catchy songwriting. A songwriting expertise that we will meet over and over again along this record.
Photo by Ingo Petramer
And as exciting the music, as excited is Joey Burns about the fact that this album is the result of many musical cooperations. Of course, CALEXICO have collaborated in the past, but on Edge Of The Sun you have a guest involved in almost every song: Amparo Sanchez borrowed her voice to the summerish bilingual dance track Cumbia de Donde, while Greg Leisz hones the music with his lithe pedal steel guitar. Some more? Pieta Brown, Neko Case, Gaby Moreno, Carla Morrison and Nick Urata (DEVOTCHKA) join in fluently. The record was Co-produced by Tucson’s well-known Sergio Mendoza who already supported the band on tour and also sent them to Mexico City for this one, the historic district of Coyoacán to be more precise, which is also the title of a Mariachi-laden instrumental in the middle of Edge Of The Sun, marking a perfect interim result of the album. But curiously the songs made in Mexico don’t sound Mexican. The ones made at home in their home Wavelab studio in Tucson, they do. Maybe it has to do with the phenomenon of always wanting to be somewhere where you are not right now. This longing has always been part of CALEXICO‘s music: wide and sweet, hot and insatiable.
Also the second half of the album – though becoming darker till the end especially with the mysteriously chanting World Undone – brims with variety and great melodies that stay in mind. Edge Of The Sun sounds well-balanced and yet exciting. Subtle synthesizers merge with wailing country, an epic Mariachi sound and hypnotizing guitar swirls echoing across the wide desert. Take me to Coyoacan, Beneath The City Of Dreams and let me Follow The River, where the longing of CALEXICO‘s songs becomes reality.
‘Edge Of The Sun’ by CALEXICO is a big party in the desert heat with many friends, a great composite work and probably their best album to date.
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