{"id":6553,"date":"2018-02-12T07:54:45","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T12:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=6553"},"modified":"2018-02-23T13:18:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T18:18:05","slug":"calexico-the-thread-that-keeps-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/calexico-the-thread-that-keeps-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Calexico <br>The Thread That Keeps Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/calexico-the_thread_that_keeps_us.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-6554\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/calexico-the_thread_that_keeps_us.jpg\" alt=\"Calexico, The Thread That Keeps Us\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/calexico-the_thread_that_keeps_us.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/calexico-the_thread_that_keeps_us-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>Calexico has always been quietly more ambitious than you might believe. Over the course of two decades, they\u2019ve constantly pushed the borders of what Calexico can be beyond the Americana niche with which they\u2019ve been associated. Sometimes that\u2019s resulted in trading in their trademark horn section for a grab bag of guest musicians, as on the band\u2019s last record, <i>Edge of the Sun<\/i>, which featured Neko Case, Iron &amp; Wine\u2019s Sam Beam, and Ben Bidwell of Band Of Horses. However, for their ninth album, <i>The Thread That Keeps Us<\/i> (Anti- Records), the band contracts while simultaneously expanding.<\/p>\n<p>Calexico\u2019s core has always been Joey Burns and John Convertino, but since 2013 the rest of the band\u2019s membership has been the same. Instead of that limiting the band, the album is arguably their most eclectic and ambitious to date. <i>The Thread That Keeps Us<\/i> takes advantage of the nurtured chemistry by limiting the outside guests to just contributions of some strings and pedal steel. The record\u2019s sound swings from a classic Calexico infusion of Mexican music with Americana, but also journeys into loose-limed funk (\u201cAnother Space\u201d) and jagged guitar workouts. Everything feels bigger and more cinematic than on past records, while even the quieter moments, like \u201cGirl in a Forest,\u201d seem like they should be soundtracking a relationship montage.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also a relative straightforwardness to the album that extends from the performances to the songwriting, whose subject matter is split between relationships and the nature of the world, political or otherwise. The album was recorded during the recent L.A. fires, so some of that bled into the album\u2019s subject matter too, the most obvious instance being the opening track, \u201cEnd of the World with You.\u201d There does seem to be the undertone of an intimate dystopian Western, which isn\u2019t as ridiculous as that phrase appears to be. Whether that type of pendulum swing will work for everyone is debatable, as some songs have a \u201cone and done\u201d quality, while the rest of the record has sonic threads, no pun intended, that hold it together.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Thread That Keeps Us<\/i> is a conundrum. It\u2019s a small album that feels big; it\u2019s a transitional record that feels established; and it\u2019s a continuation that seems like a new beginning. But it\u2019s unquestionably a Calexico record, and that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calexico has always been quietly more ambitious than you might believe. Over the course of two decades, they\u2019ve constantly pushed the borders of what<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,1107,1232],"class_list":["post-6553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-anti-records","tag-calexico"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Calexico The Thread That Keeps Us - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/calexico-the-thread-that-keeps-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Calexico The Thread That Keeps Us - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Calexico has always been quietly more ambitious than you might believe. 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