Calexico, Carried to Dust (Quarterstick)

Calexico albums are territories you come to know, landscapes that are blurrily of a piece at first, but whose landmarks become individual and beautiful with scrutiny. That’s certainly true of Carried to Dust, which initially seems disappointingly same-y, like one Podunk town whizzing by after another. Then you notice a detail, and focusing on it brings out the distinctive characteristics of the town. Soon, it’s a fascinating journey marked by subtle but telling differences, and you feel more in touch with your world. For me, the detail that opened the album up was “Sarabande in Pencil Form,” which is as Velvet Underground-like as a song with Spanish and pedal steel guitars can get. It’s of a piece with the opener, “Victor Jaya’s Hands,” but in the latter, there’s no party and no release in the song. It’s alive with understated tension. Joey Burns’ vocals are often low-key, but songs’ shapes emerge when he has a passionate moment, or when they grow in intensity as they do in “Man-Made Lake” before a fuzztone guitar cuts in behind him to detonate the song’s final moments. Like the trip that becomes one rich with personality, after a few listens, it’s hard to imagine how Carried to Dust ever sounded one-note.